Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Does this mean AC is CCHIT Certified?

Taken from CCHIT website:
http://www.cchit.org/choose/ambulatory/08/

AmazingCharts.com, Inc.
Amazing Charts 5

It means that Version 5 has completed testing and has been granted certification once it has been in practice in an office setting. The Pre-Market button on that website explains that the initial certification has been given and it will be fully certified once it is verified to be working in an office. I know that testing was done last month and finishing touches are being done. Jon does not want to get everybody antsy I think about the new version yet.......hard to wait.

Tell me about it! I am opening a new practice and my decision hinges on CCHIT so that PM software is developed.

I know that Jon said he was working on additional GUI interfaces, but it has passes CCHIT certification. I also have been told that he is working on a PM module, but he wants to get the CCHIT certification done first.

I guess my question is whether you need the CCHIT certification before you open or if you are willing to start with Version 4 (which works well and has a lot of features) and upgrade to Version 5.

I personally think you would do fine with Version 4. You can use any old PM (I use Medisoft) and do double entry for now. I think it will be great when Jon gets his PM done, but have been using Medisoft since I first bought the 500 dollar version in 2001.

Medisoft only costs $500, that is not bad at all! I did not want to buy a $6500 or more PM that everyone offers!

I don't know what the lowest version of Medisoft costs now, but thre are options - you could even look at Office Ally which offers some low cost or free options for the time being.

In various discussions with Jon, he takes backwards compatability and even changes to the basic structure of AC very seriously. If you want/need to start with V4 before going to V5, I would very much expect that there will be a smooth transition.

Because of changes to meet CCHIT certification, there may be new screens and such, but the basic operation and forward/backward compatability will not likely be affected.

The biggest thing is having a separate PM system until V6 is up and running. Backwards compatability may not be there for that, but certainly all the demographics will flow that are already in AC.

Well congratulations to Jon, on this certification. It ensures the survivability of AC.

It may or may not ensure the survivability of AC in the era of reimbursement.

While CCHIT seems the most likely candidate for "certification" of an EHR, the standards could be something else, since there is a lot of debate about the relavence of the CCHIT standard.

The other issue is whether 2 years out there will be any money to fund the mandate of support for EHR use. I would not be surprised if this might not come to pass.

Jack, I have starting working with the people at officeally and the transiton seems to be pretty much seemless. I just go the billing section and down load the claims to them and they are sent. I can also manually enter the hospital claims. I got some filled out cms 1500 from a friend as templates and it seems to be working fairly well. I dont even need to do the double entry thats bothering everybody. This is a new game for us though and it is early in the first but if things continue as they are now I may not need the pm.

Can I upload billing from AC to billing service easily without using PM or billing software?

OK, I'm very interested in the specifics, as this may be a short term solution for a lot of folks.

I know that there had been a problem with AC files to OA directly. Are you using text files or the OA format?

I think I remember that not all the info was transferring, are you running into this problem?

What are you doing with the templates? Manually printing or using this for some kind of electronic transfer?

Wendall, let me first say that I am tearful as I, the young viking, can maybe (just maybe) lend some assistance to the mighty warlord.

Here is the process I used exactly. I finished the chart and signed it. I tried to send it in text format but it did not go. It actually was sent of officeally but rejected. I was told by officeally that it needed the "ansi" format. I was told by a "guardian angel" that this format could be found under the billing section so there I went. I went into the billing section via the "export by date tab" under billing heading from the main ac screen. I put in the date of the bill I was sending and several names came into the box. I highlighted the specific file from the names of the patients shown shown and set the export section to "export selected item only." I executed the export comand from the button at the middle left hand place on the chart. I then recieved a prompt with a file name to the left and a little box on the right that said "select the format for your export." Here I selected officeally then pressed export. From here I got a windows drop down box that showed the items on my desk top. I had previous set a file under my documents labeled office alli file. I selected this file and pressed ok. The new file was then sent to my desktop. From here I then simply logged into office and and selected upload file using hcfa 1500 format, selected the file from my desktop and it was sent to officealli. I again okd the file and it was sent into the officealli system. By the way, there is a specific interface between officeally and ac. The officeally tech will walk you through the process although I did not wait for that call and just jumped right in. 15-30 minutes later I got an email from officeally stating that the file had been accepted, processed and was "cleanly" in the hands of the insurance company. I am waiting to make sure it was accepted by the insurance company via eob today but it seems to have at least been sent after being accepted by the clearing house. I can go into the officeally site and fix any errors as well. I didn't even enter any patient info. We can also check pt elgibility on the website. Well thats my story and I sticking to it. (forgive typos but need to get in to see patients without proofing)

By the way the I use the templates to make sure I have correctly filled in every box on the cms 1500 before downloading it. Again I have not recieved confirmation from the insurance carrier but officeally told me it would only submit clean claims. I am using the OA format which I was told was being transmitted as the ANSI format. I was told by officeally that all was recieved and it was sent to the insurance carrier. I don't plan to manually print anything as officeally seems to able to mail them for me and it is cheaper than I would pay for stamps. this is to answer all the questions. I will keep you updated as I plan to call the insurance carrier today to see what the status of the claim is.

Fantastic,

AC was supposed to have the ability to send to OA, but if you do a search, you will see that a lot of people seem to have had problems with it.

I tried it about a year and half ago but it did not work, I then tried through EZ claims, but none of my medicaid claims would go though. At that time OA said it was EZ claim and vice versa.

Time was slipping and I went with MTBC, the billing service that is recommended with AC and it has worked, but...
1)it took several months before everything seeme to move smoothly

2)IL medicaid stopped paying for about 4 months and since this is a large percentage of my practice, I was unsure whether these claims had been processed for many months, or were they even being processed (they were)

3)MTBC's reconsiliation system for knowing what has been processed/paid is complex. They have an extensive report system but if you want to know what claims you are paying 5% for, good luck. I think they are correct but I honestly can't be sure.

4) Why pay 5% if we can do it inhouse. They also require payment in 10 days or have a surcharge.

5)We sometimes have to send them information 2 or 3 times and they will state they have not received it. Sometimes it seems as if one hand does not know what the other is doing at MTBC. Their support is based in Pakistan, but, in fairness to them, their English and understanding seem better than most overseas telephone support systems.

6)My contract is up next month, and I am always looking for alternatives.

7)A smart Warlord is always willing to learn from a young Viking or they will not get to be old (I wish I was might:)).

The claim I sent was recieved and due payment. I sent another test out yesterday before batching. The second test was recieved as well and is pending acknowledgement by the insurance company.

Hey, new to the forum.

Yes I noticed there seem to be fields missing when trying to upload to Office Ally(from other posts). I guess I don't understand how those fields are present for other clearing houses? I'm looking for software, and reading the forum to determine the over-all feeling of it's users. I contacted Office Ally, and they have a 'method' for getting the files to process, that involves manual work in Excel, which I'm not a fan of. It seems that AC should export these, some day, possibly?

Hey CountryDoc,

New to the forum. How has OA worked out for you? Any update? Ty in advance

It is working well for me and we are starting to ramp up the billing into it. Claire and the guys in tech support are great at helping. Let me know if I can assist.

Oh good to hear that worked out for ya. Tyty