Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Who's Using What Practice Managment and Why?

So, here goes another one of my "run it up the Flag Pole and see who salutes" questions. So it seems to me that most of us are really trying to wait Jon and AC out for a PM module. I just want to get a feel for who is using what, how are they using it, what functions does it perform for you, what functions does your solution fall short on, and why you have chosen the solution you have. So let's have at it folks. Thanks for your feedback....
Paul

As I've mentioned many time before, I'm using Medisoft V6.12 (circa 1996) and have been able to limp by with billing through Office Ally.
With this crazy NPI implementation, Medisoft is going to be selling V12 (release on March, 16, 2007). The basic software is under $300 (no networking, single computer, basic package, no support). With a lack of viable PM solutions, I may make the plunge and spend a couple of thousands of dollars for the network version (although it seems like overkill for this solo-practitioner).
The problem with Medisoft is that the software has changed ownership several times by myopic profitmaking companies.

Maybe I should have proposed this much earlier.... is there enough people out there interested in helping Jon have the capital to accelerate creation of a PM program? Perhaps paying an advance?

Ya know Roy, I was thinking the same thing along time ago but I was afraid it might offend Jon. But if he were willing to share some basics, like windows snapshots, features he had in mind and in development, compare his to a few other products on the market and that sort of thing that would help us out here understand what we were going to get for our Money....Yes, I certainly would consider giving him a "downpayment" towards this thing. Anybody else???

I'm one who has been waiting for the Practice Management component of AC. However, I'm not sure how much longer we can hold out and will probably start looking for something else in the next few months (or sooner) if it is not forthcoming.

I agree that it would be good to know what is planned (with a timeline) - what is it, what features will it have, how will it work - so that decisions could be made about what direction to go in.

I have Medisoft v9 single-user with one of my nurses trained in office billing and running the billing out of her home (2 small children necessitated the temporary career change). We'll have to go to v11 or possibly v12 with the NPI requirement, but I see no need to purchase the network version since AC has a scheduler, demographics, and can produce superbills--which my biller will enter into Medisoft. Of course, the AC PM option is the best. The question is when. It's going to cost me some extra cash now to wait for Jon's product.

I've been emailing Jon and every now and again when he can come up for air he tries to answer one of my long winded emails. Anyway as he put it, his goal is to finish up this lastest release including getting it good, tight and stable (non-beta) and then start working getting the PM together since we've all been asking for it so much. I must say I agree with this plan, it makes good sense. But as of yet stonger ideas of what it will look like or when we might see it are still not there. We can Hope. As a temporary idea, who if anyone has been using EZ-Claims and how have you found that?

We've been using EZClaims for about a year. While it's very user friendly, there are limitations. They admit that they are not an accounting package. We have problems posting monthly payments on accts since they have only one place for primary/sec ins, pt pmt.
We've also had trouble with "lost" info (ie entrys are not always permanent. We use EClaims with their print image for EDI and they are great. Will probably switch billing software when something better comes along that doesnt cost an arm/leg/etc!!!

Besides the price what is the draw back of Medisoft network professional? Will x-link be required? Can one really rely on AC creating a PM? How much will AC charge to rent it? How can one integrate the data from one's billing software PM into AC's PM? How much will this process cost??

thanks,

Well, there is the rub. Getting data from two different vendors to always play nice across platforms is the main issue. To some extent, this is what the X-link is supposed to handle and manage, but many of us would like to hear of some real life experiences before moving forward. Yes to tie into anything other than EZ-Claims you are going to need to activate and purchase the X-Link for about an extra $1500 along with purchasing the PM software of your choice. Now you have 3 different products talking across one another. I've heard many good and bad about these types of situations, so personally we are trying to wait for the AC version. But this is why I started these threads. To allow all of us to share how this is or is not working. Not many takers so far, which may be sort of telling possibly in and of itself. Not sure....

Just posted a cautionary note about X-link on the problems thread.
We use Advanced MD. In the office, we use its scheduling capability, which works reasonably well. Our billing service uses its claims management capability. It is not cheap, but that is offset by its particularly good coverage of Utah payors.

I just updated from version 6.12 to version 11. I have been disappointed with the way the Medisoft has charged an arm and a leg for every encounter.
First, the data from the old Medisoft would not convert to the new version. We purchased three month of tech support. It took three hours plus of being on hold to get a technician to say that the original database was "corrupt." I know there is nothing corrupt about the database as I have used it for the past 10 years. Anyways, they charged me $95 for them to look at the database and sent a contract for $395 to "correct" the database. They stated that the support fees did not cover for database "repair". I sent them a note that the only thing that is corrupt is Medisoft and that I will not pay any money if they were going to charge me $500 additional to "upgrade" my database. I would withhold payment from the credit card company for selling a non-functional program. They corrected the database stating that they found that there wasn't a problem with a corrupt database but the program had malfunctioned.

Regardless, I will not venture to guess what Medisoft will do to get X-link to work. They will likely attempt to hold my program hostage for ransom money before allowing X-link to work.

Just my 2 cents worth!

Roy,

That sounds incredibly similar to my experience with SoapWare. It was this last straw that led me searching (and finding) a new EMR (AC).

Leslie Strouse, M.D.
Internist, Solo

(Finally...I can post again!)

The OfficeAlly PMS is available if you write and request it. I played with it a bit over the weekend, and am getting trained on it today. I think someone else is using it already, perhaps they will post a review as well.

Have a great Monday,

Barbara

Question for all... Wasn't there another one of these interfaces designed recently by AC that works with another one of these clearing houses much like officeally? The reason I ask is officeally doesn't really have many est'ed relationships with our east coast carriers. Personally, this clearinghouse thing really ticks me off, because it's just another place and form of a parasitic drain of ours and our patients' money, taken out of the healthcare system for someone else's private sector gain. Everywhere I look there are these little parasites that have little or nothing to do with providing actual patient care or increasing it's quality.

using OA now and it's not too hard to use (it's still in development as well), but unfortunately, i'm having to keep 2 databases-one for OA w/ the insurance info and another in AC w/ pt encounter info--have not seen any integration between the two yet. also, as for costs, oa is pretty reasonable if you want to mail the cms1500 yourself (cost of paper and stamp)--you can print out filled out forms w/ oa's pm.

Leslie, would you mind elaborating on your experience with SoapWare? It was one the ones we considered, and it is on my short list of relatively inexpensive EMRs that I recommend. I no longer have an evaluation copy though,so I cant dig around in it. You can send me a private message if you like.

Wayne

Re Office Ally...I don't know if there will ever be any integration between OA and AC. The person I spoke with early this week told me that OA is rolling out their own online EMR system with a subscription rate of about $20/month. As far as cost of using them right now...we don't pay anything. Only once did I have to pay the $20 fee...that's when I was trying to clean up our Medicare billing that the billing company did not do (I had 3 months of Medicare billing to submit!).

Practice Mate (the OA PMS) is not perfect by any means but I think it will be a huge time saver over using our spreadsheets. It's true...I do have to keep a two data bases, and one of the things I really don't like is that I have to create a "patient id" for the primary insured (ie, parent, spouse) so it can be linked to the real patient.

This is only our first week of using it, I'm sure I'll have more opinions and comments as time goes on.

What a great idea! I am new to AC but using it actively and the staff and I are adjusting rapidly. I for one would be willing to put a "down payment" on a PM module for AC by Jon, and would especially appreciate the opportunity to have imput into the final product.
Sam

We just bit the bullet and dropped four grand in to updating our copy of Lytec. Not planning on using X-link. We bill manually off the coded chart notes. Means entering the billing into another program, but our biller also catches coding mistakes that the docs make (like forgetting to bill that Rapid Strep for a kids sore throat, etc).

We'll look at Amazing Charts' PM stuff once there's something to look at. It's in the works, but definitely won't be ready in time for the NPI / CMS-1500 deadline (which is what? next week?!?!)

V.

I flew down to Anaheim to attend the Pri-Med West conference to pay homage to Jon Bertman. I had the opportunity to meet the founder/CEO of Office Ally. He came across as someone with a similar vision to Jon. He told me that there is no plan to charge for the PracticeMate software. I got Jon and OfficeAlly together and hope that a relationship can be established and encouraged both parties to work on a link so Amazingcharts and OfficeAlly can work seamlessly.

Roy you did a great service to all AC users. Let's hope that your efforts bear fruit.

Roy,
Yes thank-you very much. But I was noticing that the last time I looked at OA, they didn't have a lot of coverage with our east coast carriers. We in particular are very concerned about our local CNY BC/BS which is Excellus, who unfortunately control over 50% of our market up here. Let's hear it for freemarkets and no monopolies.... So I decided to pass them by because they seemed to be more of a west coast kind of clearinghouse. Has this changed or have they indicated to you that they will be beefing up their east coast coverage?

Also, was there any talk of allowing users to own a single copy of the software so that they could always have access to their own old data. These web only programs really frighten me and I feel they should scare everyone else. Once on their taxi meter they've got you by the throat to put it mildly. Even if you switch to another program, you've got to keep paying them, possilby for years just to access your own data. This is just wrong.

As I've said in other threads... When you buy a copy of Word, Excel or even non MS software like QuickBooks, Medisoft, Altapoint and the rest which are other database programs; it's your program and you can always use it to access what you created on it. It makes the old compatiblity issue sort of moot. As long as you have the OS and the old program that created our data, then you can always use that program and our old data as an archive for old charts or billing or what have you. Without such things you are at the ASP vendor's mercy, they've got you! That is why many of these ASP's can boast over a 90% retention rate; where you gonna go once they've got you? How are you going to get out clean with your charts or billing?

Although we were not pleased with our past EMR vendor ChartWare; especially with their awful corporate attitude and lack of support that expected all thier users to be high end techies like Dr Vinny, at least we still own a copy of that program and can always access and re-print the charts that Nancy created that first year or so that we used it as our charting system. Now I've got that old service pack 1 copy of XP Pro Tablet, ChartWare and that old data on her old laptop, and we can always access it and use it as we see fit. Anything less is totally unacceptable as far as I'm concerned and I feel that this should be all offices and providers line in the sand. This is our data, our patients' charts and records, and I feel we owe it to oursleves and our patients to protect it from this form of hostage taking and abuse. Why I feel that this form of hostage taking should be out lawed. Every office is entitled to a single user license so that they can always use their old data even if there is a falling out in the future. "It's ten o'clock, do you know where your data is????"
Paul

When I checked OAs insurance list, it covered most of what we see here in NYC. Even some of the small ones like Beech Street and Humana. But maybe they are kind of thin on the companies with contracts outside of the major East Coast Metros.

Paul, I'm currently reassessing my view on ASPs for the better. But you know, I still have that nagging fear that is best articulated by your post. That is a real problem. And I have heard of one or two horror stories with things like, they went out of business and no one who knew how had authority to pull their data, etc. I'm trying to decide when to recommend an ASP vendor, but this issue keeps stopping me.

Wayne

We have been trying to set up billing for about three months. AC to EZ claims to clearing house (medavant).
Multiple errors massage and we could not establish successfully yet. Pile up of charges not being paid is killing us.

I would like to get some advice as you have are using the same software for the billing. These are some questions I have.

1.do you import from AC to Ez claim. if so ,what billing export format do you use in AC. (?txt format/ez claim format)
2. I understand from my billing staff that after importing into the ezclaim, there are some correction to be corrected for each claim to get it right for the EDI ready to clearing house.
3. and yet we are still having tons of rejections that need to be corrected at the clearing house level.
4. Then whichever go thru medavant/clearinghouse, there is about 95 % rejection from the payers. It has been quite difficult over past few weeks.
5. we have been trying to change according to tech support of medavant and ez claim. This week, the staff is planning to manually entering into ez claim for each claim to see it will help.

I would really appreciated if you can give me any advice on this.

Thanks