BENEFITS

1. If you have a manual billing system or an inefficient computer system you may be experiencing this kind of insurance rejection rate and not even be aware of it. Electronic billing with ChartMaker Practice Manager provides practice benefits to avoid these pitfalls and get you processed and paid faster.

Electronically submitted claims are automatically tracked. If a claim is not paid within the agreed to time, a report can be generated, the carrier contacted and the charge reviewed, and Practice Manager can automatically resubmit the claim.

2. After you are paid, Practice Manager checks your contracted fees to ensure that you are being paid correctly, and automatically bills your secondary carrier or the patient. Medicare payments will automatically post.

The Paper Chase
With Practice Manager you can electronically bill commercial carriers as well as Medicare. If your current practice computer is only electronically billing Medicare claims you may be losing revenue as well. Many practices face an additional labor cost in tracking hard-copy commercial claims. The billing staff in most practices complain about the delay in payment from commercial carriers and the amount of time spent on insurance follow-up and requests from carriers for resubmital of hard-copy claims.

"If you submit claims electronically you have an electronic audit trail that shows when a payer received every claim you sent out." With Practice Manager you will receive a confirmation and status typically within 24 to 48 hours. If the claim was rejected it can be corrected immediately and resubmitted the same day. Accepted claims do not require a follow-up call and should be paid quickly.

The Cost of an Inefficient System
If your practice is not currently electronically billing every possible insurance carrier, your costs can be far greater than the cost to purchase a new billing system from STI.

The above HCFA example claims that many providers are losing between $25,000 and $50,000 per year. This is in addition to the above New Jersey Medicine article showing a fixed-cost of about $300 per month as well as lost interest of between $100 and $300 per month for hard-copy billing . Compare the costs of an inefficient billing system with the monthly lease price of a typical Practice Manager System at $404/month.

Medical Economics states "These days it costs money to be computer phobic. Even an outdated system can be a drag on your revenue." Is your practice experiencing revenue delays? If you are sending hard-copy claims or have an old billing system that can only electronically bill Medicare you may be leaving money on the table. "While you may balk at spending the money, consultants stress that the system soon pays for itself." "If you can't track payments by carrier and account, you'll never know whether you get paid according to contract".

Billing Service
Medical Economics claims that practices using a billing service have additional error concerns, "If you use a billing service as a middleman between your office and the insurance company, there's yet another chance that typos will be introduced or important information omitted."

When you use Practice Manager, direct electronic transmission of insurance claims to Medicare, Blue Shield and Medicaid is included with the basic system. STI is a Preferred VIP Vendor with the Medicare Program offering you all electronic services with the basic system. STI is also a Preferred Electronic Vendor with U.S. Healthcare for both primary care and specialist practices. We provide an electronic interface direct to U.S. Healthcare from your computer system. This module allows you to submit encounter forms electronically, complete and automatically type referral forms, check patient enrollment information, find answers to frequently asked questions, and more.

Commercial Carriers
Practice Manager files electronic claims to your commercial carriers via an interface to the NEIC Clearing House.

Automatic Billing
Billing is the heart of any Practice Management System. With ChartMaker Practice Manager you can have multiple prices, or CPT codes for each procedure. It automatically bills secondary, tertiary, and the patient after the primary pays. It handles piggyback insurance situations and reminds you to attach Op Notes when required. The system handles insurance, workman's compensation and patient cycle billing. Practice Manager is an open item system that bills, and tracks every charge on the patient statement, as preferred by most CPA's.

Practice Manager also notifies you about other important information like the patient's co-pay amount, when patients are within the universal surgical follow-up period, if a duplicate patient charge exists with the same date, or if a managed care approval number has expired, is about to expire, and the number of visits remaining.

Accounts Receivable
Often with a manual system, a practice is so overwhelmed with billing that there is no time to follow-up with collections. Practice Manager tracks your open charges individually until they are collected, and compares them against your allowable amount for proper payment.

Management reports show outstanding charges for each insurance carrier so you can call to collect. Aged Receivable reports direct your staff to collect the oldest charges first before they become a collection problem. Practice Manager can even automatically write personal collection letters to your patients. Practice Manager allows budget plans, finance charges, and generous space for collection notes both for internal use, and printable on your patient statements.

Patient Recall with Letter Writer
Practice Manager allows you to schedule recall reasons and dates in the computer. You can automatically send postcards or recall letters with the recall reason in your own words. Recall will show on the Recalls Not Seen Report for additional follow-up by your staff.

Auto Posting
One of the most disliked jobs in a practice is posting the Medicare Explanation of Medical Benefits (EOMB) This is a very tedious and time consuming job if it is done correctly. Not only do you need to post every procedure charge to the patient ledger card, but you also need to check your allowable profile to ensure you are paid correctly, and pass the balance on to the secondary insurance carrier for billing, or on to the patient bill. Practice Manager electronically posts your Medicare and Pennsylvania Blue Shield EOMB's automatically, checks your profiles for accuracy, and balance bills, saving most practices hundreds of labor hours each year. This time can be better spent with patient care, or collecting patient overdue balances.