New Features Descriptions

New Contract Management Features
 
Application: Business Manager
Area: Practice Settings > Contracts

New features have been added to support Contract Management. Contracts can be used by the billing office to track standard fee schedules and contractual agreements between insurance companies and providers within a practice. You can setup one or more Contracts under Practice Settings > Contracts. Charge entry and payment posting have also been enhanced to take advantage of any Contracts setup for a practice. When entering charges on an encounter, the billing fee is automatically calculated based upon the Standard Fee of a governing Contract. When posting payments, the adjustment amount is automatically calculated based upon the Allowable Amount setup in the governing Contract. Contracts also help the billing office track expected reimbursements and claim response time frames to ensure that providers are reimbursed correctly and promptly.
 
For more information on these features, refer to the help topic Setting up the Practice > Setting up Contracts located in the Online Help and User Manual.

Existing Fee Schedules Moved to Practice Standard Contracts
 
Applications: Business Manager and Medical Office
Area: Practice Settings > Contracts

Because all fee schedules are now tracked using Contracts, the legacy Fee Schedule tasks located under Practice Settings have been removed. However, all pre-existing fee schedules have been saved and migrated into Practice Standard Contracts under their original names. You can now edit both standard fee schedules (now known as Practice Standard Contracts) and insurance specific fee schedules (known as Insurance Specific Contracts) through Practice Settings > Contracts.

Improved Claim Status Tracking with New Drill-Down Filters
 
Application: Business Manager
Area: Track Claims Status

The Claim status information has been improved as a first step towards more comprehensive reimbursement management tools. Some examples: Claims queued up for printing are marked with the status Ready - Paper Claims to Print, Claims for which the payer has not responded within the contractual timeframe are marked with the status Error - No Response, and Claims denied by the payer are marked with the status Error - Denial. You can now display the list of Claims filtered by status using the improved Track Claim Status task which makes it easy to locate and follow-up on specific categories of Claims. New features will be added in future releases which build upon the new Claim status model.
 
For more information on this feature, refer to the help topic Sending and Tracking Claims located in the Online Help and User Manual.

New Claim Printing Wizard
 
Application: Business Manager
Area: Claims > Print Paper Claims

A new claim printing wizard has been added to provide new claim printing options and better status information during printing. The new claim printing options enable you to print claims for all patients or a specific patient, all insurance companies or a specific insurance company, and all payer scenarios or a specific payer scenario. During the printing process, the new claim printing wizard shows you progress information such as the current claim being printed and the percentage complete. You can access the new claim printing wizard through the Print Paper Claims menu item located in the Claims menu.
 
For more information on this feature, refer to the help topic Sending and Tracking Claims > Printing Paper Claims located in the Online Help and User Manual.

New Patient Alerts
 
Applications: Business Manager and Medical Office
Area: Patients, Appointments, and Encounters

The new Patient Alerts are custom messages which can be added to a patient record in order to alert the medical office and billing office of situations that require special attention. Patient Alerts can be added, edited or removed by the user at any time. Once added, a Patient Alert can be configured to display in one or more of the following situations: displaying Patient details, scheduling an Appointment, or entering an Encounter.
 
For more information on this feature, refer to the help topic Managing Patient Records > Adding Patient Alerts located in the Online Help and User Manual.

New Daily Report Added
 
Application: Business Manager
Area: Reports > Productivity & Analysis > Daily Report

The Daily Report has been added. You can also display activities by Date of Service or Posting Date. You can now access the report from the Productivity & Analysis sub-menu located under the Reports menu.

Copying Appointments
 
Application: Medical Office
Area: Appointment Calendars

You can now copy and paste Appointments. Simply right-click on an existing Appointment and select Copy from the drop-down menu, then right-click elsewhere on the Calendar and select Paste. This creates a copy of an existing Appointment for a different time slot on the Calendar.
 
For more information on this feature, refer to the help topic Scheduling Appointments located in the Online Help and User Manual.

New Attorney Tracking
 
Applications: Business Manager and Medical Office
Area: Editing a Patient Case

You can now track Attorneys related to a Patient Case. The new Attorneys tab is displayed when editing a Case with a Payer Scenario of Attorney Lien or Worker's Compensation. For Cases with all other Payer Scenarios, the Attorneys tab is hidden from view. Tracking attorneys is optional and not required to process claims.
 
For more information on this feature, refer to the help topic Managing Patient Records > Entering a New Patient > Entering Case Information located in the Online Help and User Manual.

New Worker's Compensation Fields
 
Applications: Business Manager and Medical Office
Area: Editing a Patient Case

You can now track the contact information for the Worker's Compensation Appeals Board office associated with a Worker's Compensation Case. The new Workers Compensation tab is displayed when editing a Case with a Payer Scenario of Worker's Compensation. For Cases with all other Payer Scenarios, the Worker's Compensation tab is hidden from view. Tracking Worker's Compensation information is optional and not required to process claims.
 
For more information on this feature, refer to the help topic Managing Patient Records > Entering a New Patient > Entering Case Information located in the Online Help and User Manual.

Changes to Condition Dates
 
Applications: Business Manager and Medical Office
Area: Editing a Patient Case

The process for entering Condition Dates has been changed slightly. Dates are still entered on the Condition tab of a Patient Case, but now you can enter multiple dates for certain types of situations (e.g. one or more injury dates).
 
For more information on this feature, refer to the help topic Managing Patient Records > Entering a New Patient > Entering Case Information located in the Online Help and User Manual.

Creating an Appointment from Patients List
 
Application: Medical Office
Area: Viewing Patients List

There is a new shortcut for creating an Appointment for an existing patient. The new Create Appointment. button is located on the Task Button Bar of the Patients task. Selecting an existing Patient record and clicking this button will open the New Appointment with the Patient pre-selected.
 
For more information on this feature, refer to the help topic Managing Patient Records > Creating an Appointment for a Patient located in the Online Help and User Manual.

Auto-populate Guarantor, Insured Addresses in Patient Record
 
Application: Business Manager and Medical Office
Area: Adding or Editing Patient Record

To speed data entry, the Guarantor and Insured addresses are automatically populated from the Patient address. If you select the "Guarantor is different than patient" checkbox, then the Guarantor's address is not automatically populated with the Patient's address. When entering Insurance Policies, if you select the "Insured is different then patient" checkbox, then the Insured's address is automatically populated with the Patient's address.
 
For more information on this feature, refer to the help topic Managing Patient Records located in the Online Help and User Manual.

Auto-populate Provider on Encounter Record
 
Application: Business Manager and Medical Office
Area: Adding Encounters

To speed data entry, the primary provider field for new patients is automatically populated when creating a new encounter. If a patient's last encounter on a case was with a different provider, however, that same provider will be automatically populated.

New Codes Imported
 
Applications: All
Area: Data

Unless you provided us with a list of procedure codes during the data import stage of your implementation, we have imported the complete list of CPT and HCPCS codes into your database. If you did not receive this list and would like the entire list loaded, please let us know. We have also loaded the complete list of provider taxonomy (specialty) codes. It is accessible from Settings > Providers > Edit Provider task.

New Patient Quick Selector on Encounter Record
 
Applications: Business Manager and Medical Office
Area: Adding or Editing Encounters

To speed data entry, you may now type in a name or ID of a patient in the Encounter record. If the software finds exactly one patient matching your search, it will put that patient's name underlined on the screen. If there were no results for your search, the name or ID you typed in will be underlined with a red, squiggly line. You should erase the text and try a search again. If there were multiple patients matching your search, the name or ID you typed in will be underlined with a green wavy line. You can double-click on this text and you will be taken to the Patient Selection screen showing just the results matching your search.
 
You can always click on the Patient. button next to the text entry field to display the Select Patient task to find a specific patient. The new functionality is only a shortcut, not a replacement of functionality.

Other Software Issues Resolved