A key step in ensuring claims for new providers are accepted is to set up provider and group numbers correctly. That's why we're making a series of changes over the next few releases to make it easier to set up provider and group numbers in Kareo. In this release, we have started by allowing you to attach both provider and group numbers to insurance companies. We have also added new error checking to make sure you don't attach payer-specific provider and group number types, such as the 1A Blue Cross Provider Number or the 1C Medicare Provider Number, to all insurance companies or plans, a common mistake that causes rejections. For more information on setting up provider and group numbers, read the Kareo Provider and Group Numbers Guide.

Many of our customers have asked us to make it easier to work with insurance claims, particularly claims that have been rejected and need to be corrected and rebilled. Over the next few releases, we will be rolling out a series of enhancements designed to improve claim workflow. In this release, we have started with several improvements to the claims task. First, the claim status categories (e.g. Ready to print paper claims, Rejections, etc.) have been reorganized into a single list that can more easily be used when finding claims or viewing reports. Second, there are now keyboard shortcuts and a right-click menu so that you can more quickly perform any action on a claim, such as printing a claim, entering a note, adding an adjustment, etc. Third, you can now select multiple claims and rebill them all in a single action. Finally, the size of the claims list has been increased from 20 to 50 records per page in the result set. For more information, refer to the help topic Sending and Tracking Claims > Tracking the Status of Claims.

The best way to learn Kareo is to see it in action. That's why we have updated our training library with more than 14 new training videos, with more than 7 hours of training, covering all aspects of the Kareo service. The new training videos walk you through setting up a new practice and steps you through the entire patient scheduling, billing, and collections process. The videos are designed to be watched as a series or individually. Check out the new videos now by visiting the training section of the Kareo Help and Support Site at http://help.kareo.com/training/.

If you've ever sent an email to support@kareo.com and then wondered what Kareo is doing with your support case, we have exciting news for you. You can now view a list of support cases associated with your account, check status, and even add follow-up comments for the Kareo support team. To check out this powerful new feature, please visit the Kareo Help & Support Site and login to your account at http://help.kareo.com/login/. Once you are logged in to your account, simply click on View My Support Cases to view and search a list of your open cases and see any public comments the Kareo support team has added to your cases. Please note, this feature is available only to your company administrator, or other users granted specific permission by the company admininstrator.

The Kareo web enrollment request form located at http://help.kareo.com/setup/enrollment/newenrollment is used to enroll new providers for clearinghouse services. The web enrollment request form has been updated with a new field to track the Social Security Number (SSN) or Employer's Identification Number (EIN) associated with each provider you enroll. This is important information that is now required with every new enrollment.

You now navigate to a specific page within a result set on most lists in the Kareo application with new paging options. There is now a control in the lower right corner of most search tasks that shows you the current page and the total pages in the result set. You can navigate to any page by typing in a page number and the enter key. This feature makes it easier to navigate through large lists of records.

Many of our customers have told us they like the hyperlinks on some of our reports that let them drill-down through reports. One of the major goals on our product roadmap for reporting is to extend this drill-down and cross-linking capability to all reports. In this release, we made another step toward this goal by adding drill-down hyperlinks to the Key Indicators Summary report. You can now click on the Charges, Adjustments, Receipts, Refunds, and A/R Balance columns (or cells) of the Key Indicators Summary report to drill-down to more detailed reports on each of those metrics. For more information, refer to the help topic Generating Reports.

Many customers have requested a report that provides a list of patients based upon various criteria. So we have added 10 new customization options to the Patient Contact List report. You can now filter by Rendering Provider, Diagnosis, Procedure, Gender, Age, Payer Scenario, Primary Insurance Company, Referral Source, Referring Physician, and Date of Birth. You also export the Patient Contact List report to the Microsoft Excel form and use Microsoft Word's mail merge capabilities to use this contact information to send a variety of letters and other notifications to patients. For more information, please refer to the help topic Generating Reports > Working with Reports > Customizing Reports.

Many customers liked the new Insurance Collections Summary and Detail reports, which were introduced with our last major release. However, many of you have given us some great feedback in suggesting that we add an option to filter the report by Claim Status (i.e. Rejections, Denials, No Response, etc). So we have added a new option to both the Insurance Collection Summary and Detail reports enabling you to filter by Claim Status. You can access both reports from the Reports > Acounts Receivable menu item. For more information, please refer to the help topic Generating Reports > Working with Reports > Customizing Reports.

As part of the changes to provider and group numbers described above, both the Provider Numbers and Group Numbers reports have been updated with a column named Insurance Company to show which provider and group numbers are associated with insurance companies.

One of our customers needed two additional fields added to the Encounter record in order to properly bill ambulance charges to Masshealth on the Masshealth Transportation Claim (MASS M7) format. So we added the new Emergency and Time of Service fields to the Ambulance add-on section of the Encounter record. For more information, please refer to the help topic Entering and Tracking Encounters > Entering a New Encounter.

When fixing data entry errors while remediating claim rejections, you may need to review patient or appointment information in order to correct and rebill claims associated with encounters. But prior to this release, it was not possible to directly link from an Encounter record to the corresponding Appointment or Patient records in Kareo. This has been changed. You can now quickly view the Appointment or Patient records associated with Encounters by double-clicking on the Appointment or Patient fields on any approved Encounter. For more information, please refer to the help topic Entering and Tracking Encounters > Changing Encounters.

When fixing data entry errors while remediating claim rejections, you may need to review insurance plan information related to an insurance policy in order to correct and rebill claims for a patient. We are happy to report you can now quickly view the Insurance Plan record associated with a specific patient's Insurance Policy record by double-clicking on the Insurance Plan field of the Insurance Policy record. For more information, please refer to the help topic Managing Patient Records > Entering a New Patient > Adding Insurance Policies to a Patient Record.

After changing an encounter while remediating claim rejections, you may need a quick method to find and rebill the claims related to the encounter you altered. There is now a convenient way to find claims associated with an encounter. Simply open any approved Encounter record and click on the new Show Claims button located on the task button bar. This will display the claims list and search for all claims by Encounter ID. Then, you can simply select all of the claims, click the Action... button, and click on the Re-bill menu option to re-bill the claims. For more information, please refer to the help topic Tracking Claim Status.

In the process of remediating claim rejections, many of our customers have noticed that Kareo's clearinghouse partners return a rejection for claims that are mistakenly submitted more than once within any 48 hour period, and Kareo categorizes those duplicate claims as rejections. This has confused many of our customers that use the Rejections claim status category, and related reports, to follow-up, correct, and re-bill claims. To avoid any further confusion, we have changed our categorization methodology so that duplicate claims are no longer considered Rejections in Kareo. For more information, please refer to the help topic Tracking Claim Status.

New customers seem to have a difficult time figuring out how to add a new practice to Kareo. So we added a new hyperlink Create new practice... on the Select Practice to Open screen, which allows authorized users to quickly add a new practice to Kareo.

A common mistake of users adding a new practice to Kareo is that they forget to add their own user account to the list of users authorized to login to the new practice. They add the new practice, return to the Select Practice to Open screen, but they are confused because a link to the new practice is not displayed. In order to avoid this confusion, Kareo now automatically authorizes the new practice creator to login to the new practice. For more information, please refer to the help topic Setting up Your Company > Managing Practices > Adding a New Practice.

In order to better support our customers, we plan to start delivering email communications, such as release notes or system notifications, that are targeted to the most appropriate class of users. To get ready for these changes, Kareo has added a new Notifications tab to the User Account record that is designed to allow you to manage your users' subscriptions to several classes of user notifications. Use the General Notifications option to subscribe users to email notifications of a very general nature, such as general release notes or system downtime. Use the Clearinghouse Notifications option to subscribe users to email notifications forwarded by our clearinghouse partners, which may provide information about claim processing issues. Finally, use the Company Administrator Notifications option to subscribe users to email notifications that are specific to a company administrator, such as billing, account procedures, and other more sensitive communications not meant for a broad user audience. For more information, please refer to the help topic Setting up Your Company > Configuring Users and Security.

Kareo Practitioner, the application that enables providers to capture charges on handheld devices, now features automatic update. To update your device, make sure you are connected to the Internet through a PC, wired or Wi-Fi connection, and restart the Kareo Practitioner application. It will automatically check for, and download, new versions automatically. Please note, Since the current version does not feature automatic update, you will need to manually download the updated Practitioner version from the Kareo web site. Once you do this, any future version will be downloaded and installed automatically.

As part of the changes to provider and group numbers described above, we have discontinued the outdated provider and group number types below. Our goal is to reduce the number of provider and group number options available to users, and therefore, minimize data entry errors in setting up new providers.
 
Discontinued Provider Number Types:
Blue Cross (California)
Medicare Railroad Number
 
Discontinued Group Number Types:
B3 - Preferred Provider Organization Number
BQ - Health Maintenance Organization Code Number
U3 - Unique Supplier Identification Number
RN - EDI Receiver Number
RM - EDI Receiver Name
PI - Payor Identification
PP - Pharmacy Processor Number
4A - Personal Identification Number
CT - Contract Number
SV - Service Provider Number
EL - Electronic Device PIN Number
EO - Submitter Identification Number
JD - User Identification
Q4 - Prior Identifier Number

Some insurance companies require the Facility ID associated with a Service Location to be printed on the CMS 1500 form in box 32b, while others do not. So you can now configure specific insurance companies to either include or exclude the Facility ID on box 32b of the CMS 1500 Form by changing the new options located in the Paper Claims tab of the Insurance Company record. For more information, please refer to the help topic Setting up Your Company > Setting Insurance Lists > Setting up Insurance Companies.

Kareo has added a new billing form to support billing insurance companies using the New York Workers' Compensation Attending Doctor's Report and Carrier/Employer Billing Form (C-4). For more information, please refer to the help topic Setting up Your Company > Setting Insurance Lists > Setting up Insurance Companies.