Actually, it is a fair question as to what a Practice Management (PM) system is. Typically it will do billing, and usually by electronic means, but not necessarily. AC does have the ability to print HCFA 1500's but by itself that would not constitute a PM system.
Beyond just generating billing, you need to track what payments are received, what is still outstanding, what partial payments are made and usually any notations to go along with that. You need to track days in receiving, both by patient and by insurance. You probably want to generate bills both for current visit (which AC can do) as well as a summary of outstanding bills, as well as possibly all account both paid and unpaid, summary. You need to be able to enter discounts for agreed services and for even self pay. You should be able to track what money was taken at the front for copays and payments on account.
You might want to track inventory. You might want to look at productivity as to what various CPT codes are paying, which insurance company is giving the highest average reimbursement.
I can go on and on. Some are nice, many are mandatory. Look around the forum even in the last 90 days, there has been a lot of discussion on this. Check out the tread what do providers want in a PM system.
