Home Forums Discussions Feedback and Recommendations What do people want in Practice Management?

Jon has said he is working on the practice management module ? I wondered what people are really looking for - is it just billing, is it a better rolodex, ability to do more searching ? I just think it would be great if we could have one thread with everybody's wishes for PM - let's stay on track and do just that....

Steven,

I think he is talking about an extremely robust Practice Management application such as what you would see with Lytec or Medisoft for billing, etc. This would work directly with AC's EMR rather than just connecting to it like a 3rd party program.

Personally, I am not at all in favorite of it, but this is just I, and I am sure I am in the vast minority.

I would want the PM module to be optional, with a price differential if one does not want or need it. I have a PM program now and if the one with AC is not as "robust" as the one I am using then I would likely not go to the significant trouble of changing. And, if the price of AC goes up substantially because of the addition of non-optional PM module, I would likely change to a different EMR.

Leslie

The key to a PM program is the ability to bill, to track claims and to monitor both what was paid and what was not. You need to be able to connect to any variety of clearinghouses and be able to read and evalutate their feedback as to what has cleared and what did not and why.

You need to be able to sort any variety of information, from patients per day to what are the payments for a particular CPT by a variety of insurance companies. It would be nice to be ble to custom create sorting on the fly.

You need to be able to both electronically as well as print to paper claims. You need to be able to enter data manually as well as having the ability to import it from either cliearing hosues or a variety of insurance company sites.

It would be nice to be able to track inventory which would be automatically reduced by CPT code (ie immunizations.) It would be nice for it to flag when payments are less than cost on items.

I would like it to open a dialog box with the patients balance and the ability to both enter payments and pull insurance payments quickly. The front desk should know the balance and payment history as soon as the patient walks in the door. You should be able to print payment hx and bill the payment at the door.

Im sure if I had more time I could come up with more ideas, but these are a start. Anyone with more ideas, please chime in.

It needs to have a "Notes" section for both general entries and for specific entries as regards a specific charge so the billers can document their conversations with an insurance company or a patient.
It needs to be able to print statements.
It needs to be able to calculate and assign late fees and finance charges.
It needs to allow the design of one's own forms, e.g. statements or superbills.
It needs a powerful search feature so one can search by account number, last name, first name, DOB, address, SSN.
It must be able to easily adjust fee tables for all CPT codes without having to change each individually.
It must have more than one fee table, e.g. one for cash discount patients.
It must be able to post payments by line item.
It must have a very strong "REPORTS" capability, as noted by Wendell.

I'll think of more also.

Leslie

it needs to be able to electronically accept and log EOBs.

It needs top be able to export in multiple electronic formats, including x12, ansi, and all the others I am not thinking of right now.

It would be nice if it dovetailed into office ally since they have a no fee structure, but it should be compatable with most if not all clearinghouses.

It would be wonderful if it could bill based on the reimbursement, as Leslie stated, thus with multiple fee schedueles, you would have little to adjust as the fee matched the payment. I have not seen this in many programs.

Steven, I am going to have to give you the TOTW award!

TOTW ????

Thread of the Week

Great - now if we can just get more input - there has to be more users who are interested in the PM portion.

There are definitely more, but as usual, it's the usual suspects that post.

I agree with all the stuff others have said so far. It would also be great to have a program that allows one to easily tweak the printouts(when you need to file on paper) to make them actually fit on whatever forms you happen to be using, because invariably the lines will be just slightly off and then it won't line up properly with the form. Also, if you file on UB's there is different info that must go in depending on what kind of office you are(rural health has a lot of quirks....and no Bert, I don't do as well as the FQHCs do on reimbursement but it is better than std rates). That's all I can think of right now, got too much swine flu on my brain right now. What a week!
PS Bert, I don't think I count as a "usual suspect"!:-)
Then again my computer was out of action for a few weeks and I couldn't remember my password to get back in to the boards!

Oh, you are definitely a usual suspect. And, shoot me an email or PM me next time, and I can reset your password.

It might be nice if the PM system could be set to send reminders, either electronically, or set up to send letters or even labels for postcards.

I am new and just hearing as well as seeing what others are doing with this low cost system is overwhelming. If you give my young, struggling practice any help it is great. To have an intergrated PM is a dream and we would make due with it while finding other low cost ways to do what the PM didn't do. Please keep in mind when thinking of being the "usuals" that there are many of us who are far less experienced who depend on "the usuals." I take so much information from you experienced guys that I usally have little to add. By the way keep reponding and those of us who are less savvy will keep on learning. Just "give me practice management or give me death."

George,

Give us your thoughts!! Tell us what is important to you as far as a PM program. I promise, Jon is listening.

Leslie

Thanks for you post George and welcome to AC. I am glad to know that "our community" is helping you. I also encourage you to add your thoughts here.

George, in some ways you are more important in regards to what you feel a Practice Management program is or can do for you. You are new to practicing and what new practitioners are looking for is very important. A fresh face on this can always help.

I have seen a number of programs that call themselves Practice Management but really are just database tools. Ultimately they all are, but how both user friendly and intuitive they present the information is crucial.

Well for me the most important thing is ease of use. I have a start up practice and the people I work with need a lot of supervision. I need a tool that will link to multiple clearinghouses and allow easy tranfer of information from the ac database directly to the PM module with little effort. The less I have to learn the better. This leaves me more time for what I really do....take care of people.

I hope the pmr comes out soon because my billing service is doing a poor job and I want to move on. I won't make the move until I see the PMR

Frank J. Paiano, DO

I think the PM program is high on the list - Jon and his team are working on that and just want to make sure that it works and is usable.

I am in the same situation Frank and like you am waiting. I have started working with the people for office alli and they seem to have a rather simple system as well. I really want to the the ac pmr though.

Jon for those of us inquiring fans could you please give us some "rough" idea of when the program will be ready?

It is none of my business to speak to the future plans of Amazing Charts but I just can't sit by and stay zipped up.

AS I UNDERSTAND IT (and I am just a user, I do not speak for AC) the CCHIT is in the can and being tested. That done the Practice Management is on the front burner.

As with CCHIT they have hired outside specialists with the primary focus being a gentleman who can help Jon divide the work up into bite sized pieces that will fully integrate with each other, allowing AC to parcel the jobs out to programers all over who can tackle each small assignment. Net result should be a functioning PM module in a much shorter time. (In a month, no of course not. I bet it will be a year before it is in my office and running, BUT it looks like it will be WELL WORTH THE WAIT).

I just heard a lot of great ideas being kicked around but I realize those may now be proprietary and are not ideas for the competition to scoop up. All I can say is, if 10% of the stuff makes it into AC PM it will be great. Anything more than that will be AWESOME.

Just adding my two cents worth,

I also think the PM should be able to incorporate the G codes for the PQRI submission portion easily.... So we all get our credit.

It should be able to update the new Medicare codes easily

For those of us flying relatively solo with limited staff, productivity reports.... that might be labeled as such for the non-accountant types perhaps looking at/dividing the patients into age groups, insurance classes, diagnosis types and the like so a practice can better assess future growth or lack of.

include a scrubber such that claims submissions can be checked for accuracy before leaving the office electronically or being printed by paper.

Just some random thoughts

Patient's insurance needs to be tagged to the individual claim - not the patient's whole account. This has been a major head ache with EZ Claim.

YES! I agree very much with that!

Is there any clue or rumor out there about when we might expect to see a PM module from AC?

I would like to have a pm program that accurately collects demographics and codes, puts it into a form that is usable by billing programs, clearing houses, etc.
I would also like to be able to follow my charges and do basic bookkeeping that would integrate easily with Quick Books.