Home Forums Discussions Coding and Billing PM module: a user poll

Actually Jack the wait has been sort of like since the Middle of 2006 if you want to know the truth. It was middle 2006 that I and a few others here, some still here like Leslie I believe was part of the chorus to at least then, supporting my suggestion that AC attempt to put together an AC version, easy to use and understand PM module to compliment and work with our beloved AC.. The more I learned about interfaces and X-Link and this one's update then messes with the link and other other programs so frequently, the more I felt it was Very Important for AC to include a PM as soon as they could put together something that would fly, not crash and not make folks go broke...

It's been a long time running down since we first started these conversations and suggestions including the Voice on one shoulder "Bert" warning us not to ask for TOO MUCH, and to be careful of what you ask for, because you just might get it, and then nice smooth and easy to live with and work with AC might not really resemble our once beloved AC anymore....

Psychic that guy Bert sometimes I think. IMHO, when the first Versions of 6 started to mess up so many User Board members (who tend to be a bit more savvy as evident by their coming here, sharing and attempting to self help when they can) systems and offices with the super crawl slow down problems... I could hear Bert's voice (and I do actually know what he sounds like too!!! :-) in my head warning me and other "Wish Listers" begging for a decent PM to be careful what we ask for, because we just might get it...

And after so many other users (NOT US BTW) started to pressure Jon I gather, along with the gov't changing the rules of the game with the EMR incentives perhaps to mess with the smaller vendors like AC and Jon, to the benefit of Corporate Welfare for the larger more expensive vendors who might have been able to contribute more campaign dollars and have "better access" and not to primary care either.... Jon felt he had no choice but to do Meaningless Use or Die. I for one understand that and that was probably the best if not the only viable long term solution for Jon to keep AC relevant and with paying customers coming thru the door... It probably did save AC the company which might have found itself all alone in the Dumpster of has been EMR's with many others that have come and gone already....

Iacocca and FIAT have saved Chrysler twice now (last time from its own destructive eat its young adoptive parent that bled it dry when it's RAM's and Jeeps were hot but never seemed to allow it to share properly in that return by reinvesting in keeping up its product line and tech edge over the other big 3... But was K-Car, no more Muscle Cars at all, no Challenger or Swingers, or Duster Mopar Chrysler really the same Die Hard Mopar fans concept of Mother Mopar or Chyrsler??? And until the first Grand Cherokee's with Magnums and the RAM's came about, the answer was clearly NO... More recently things have started to look a bit more like something a true Mopar fan would see as his favorite Best Engineering, fun to throw around company again....

And so what is the state of post Meaningless Uselessness AC much like Mother Mopar's three modern day incarnations??? I think by allowing us the ability to turn on registries, connections to REC's and RUC's, and MU collection garbage, while in many ways the main components of AC still sort or resemble good old V's 3 and 4 of pre SQL and Pre MU, E Rx'ing AC, that considering the situation, it seems to me that Jon and his team did the best they could under the conditions and requirements as they were laid out by the federal gov't....

And using my other example of Chrysler, Mopar post the Iacocca glove save in terms of the dropping of solid lines and the swap out to more modern (Yuk!!!) K-Cars and Mini Vans (remember who introduced and started the front wheel drive Mini Vans, Mopar and Iacocca did. One of the most profitable and purchased line of vehicles ever and started an entire new category, class as well) I feel AC has done a much better job of attempting to retain much of it original look and feel that older users came to feel so comfortable with, love and highly recommend to others out there. Sort of an EMR version of Apple and I Pods and the like...

But Bert's warning to all of us way back then is so worth repeating here again... "We all better be careful of what we ask for because we just might get..... And it just might not feel or look like the good old easy to use and keep up with AC we all have come to know and love so much today"

The older you get the more sensable your parents seem to become...
Thanks Poppa Bert!!!

Paul

1) No - outsourced biller uses medical mastermind - getting ad hoc reports like pulling teeth -
2) Yes
3) Yes
4) Yes
5) Yes

Claire,
PM(V7) when released, can we bill without completing(signing) the chart.
Most of the time we cannot sign the charts on the same day.
george.

Hi,

Just some quick answers.

MU can be turned off in the User Preferences area. To find this look for the word edit in the top of the main Amazing Charts Screen. Or just press Ctrl+U.

Version 7 will not change the current export options such as Office Ally.
There will be options added to populate box 32 and 33.
At this time it looks like CPT codes will be handled in the same way. The same CPT code cannot be on two lines.

The PM team is working very hard and we are closer to a release every day.

Claire

Great news Claire cannot wait!!!

That is good news. Some of us are happy with MU and the way AC handles it. Others have a deep, strong, almost religious opposition to it (you know who you are) . I think that some forget you can turn off MU notifications in V6, and now it appears you will be able to do the same in V7. If you don't want to do MU, but you want the benefits of V6, jump in...the water is fine.

Just fired my billing company. Hope the PM comes soon.

Claire, the same CPT code cannot be on 2 lines in the PM version? Please reconsider. In Texas, any medicaid provider has to bill vaccine admin code 90460 and 90461 on multiple lines - the vaccine admin code right after the vaccine code. If you give more than 1 vaccine per encounter, you have to have multiple lines of 90460. All medicaid MCOs and traditional medicaid in Texas require this.

Also we really need to be able to add our own modifier. Medicaid (again) wants us to use modifier "AM" when we bill a checkup code 9938x and 9939x.

Serene

Claire,

To reinforce what serene said, some of our clients also have situations where CPT's must be on separate lines and not aggregated in accordance with North Carolina Medcaid.

This situation has aleady cost AC two sales with our clients who simply refused to deal with the headache because of this.

JamesNT

Yep, that is HUGE!!! When I got my first EOB back saying I charged 1000 for one injection when really it was 100 per injection and I did 10 and the carrier couldn't understand what the units thing meant; I about wet myself. Then I called the carrier and got sent to India where no matter how many ways I tried to explain it, the lady just could not understand. Then I spent another hour of my time filling out paperwork to mail in to fix it.

So Claire, you said the export to office ally wouldn't change, but you can change the output to box 32/33. So what is it, will it change or not? Or will it just change for everyone except us who export to office ally. lol boooo.

have been using outsourced billing company for years, hate them they are doing less and less every year. cannot wait for the PM module for AC.

Hi John

I saw this post you posted back in January. And I see you use Medisoft. Please help me by answering the questions below (if you don't mind)

I am new here. I am a one person doc/practice. I currently have medisoft version 11 (for scheduling/practice mgmt/billing). I really want to implement amazing charts in my office. But I was told to get the X-link software to be able to have my medisoft communicate properly with the amazing charts emr. (obviously amazing charts emr + practice mgmt "newest" version is not out yet).

Does any one here use medisoft + x-link + amazing charts currently? If you do, here are my questions?

1. Is this a benign transition (hooking up these 3 soft ware programs)?

2. Are there any main glitches that I should expect? If so what are they?

3. Which version medisoft are you using in your office currently with x-link and a. charts?

I gratefully welcome any other insight into what I am trying to accomplish.

Thank you, Chuk

Chuk,

I use medisoft and AC - we did not purchase the interface as it is expensive, when something changes it requires updates, etc. I assume (don't get mad if I am wrong) that you work as an IMP style practice with just you and relatively low volume - if that is the case I would suggest double entry into medisoft to bill, this allows you to verify everything and make sure it is right. I see about 25-35 per day and do hospital and we double enter as I just do paper superbill to my billing person - it really does not require much more work and saves a lot of money.

I also am a 1-doc office. We use Medisoft and AC but didn't get the interface. It's not worth the trouble or expense.

This is exciting news!

Our Practice has been Lytec Users since the early days. When we finally decided to go with an EHR, my original inclination was to go with the LytecPM, in order to have an all in one solution. The PM however seems to have gone up 4 fold, it also has a lot of nickel and dime add on fees to be truly useful, and the clincher was the 8,000 in mandatory training fees! That said we instead found Amazing Charts. In the near term we will use two systems, AC for charting and our current Lytec for billing, no interface, just double entry. The plan is to see how the AC, practice management works and switch to that if the program works as well as AC! If not we will probably go with the interface to our current system.

katy61,
When I was doing initial research for an EHR, since our group of 8 docs has used lytec for years for billing (upgraded to lytec 11 recently), was drawn to the LytecPM as well. After hearing of a local group of chiropracters who did just that, and their woes with simple documentation gave me pause, and during the pause happened to run across the 2000+ primary care users of the 30 most commonly used EHR's and read the raving reviews in the survey and took a chance with AC. Boy am I glad. We also use the scheduler with lytec because the size of our group and all have individual AC "pod"s with our own individual data base (one doc still uses eclinical) so we will likely continue lytecll for billing and scheduling indefinitely just because of the setup of our group. Currently I print up a superbill through AC after each visit and staple to our lytec bill so that I can make corrections if need be for our in house billers. This is a bit redundant but at some point may pdf the bill to the billers and eliminate the paper step, but for now this is working and much better than circling and writing stuff on the old generic lytec billing slip.

I know this PA who was researching eClinicalWorks for his doctor. He always raves about it (but they didn't get it).

5 year software cost AC=6000 dollars
eclinical- 35,000 dollars
I suspect may be part of the reason

5 year software cost of AC = $6,000
One-time setup of a good server network by qualified IT professionals (not IT guys)including hardware and software = $6,000
Total = $12,000

eClinicalWorks = $35,000

And that is without any of the network setup.

Either way you'll need a good network because most people are just using AC. You have billing software, MS Office, File Sharing, Scanning, Email, etc. So I don't know if that would count as a cost of AC. To use eClinical in the office, you'd still need some type of network. Just saying, even if we didn't have AC, we would still probably have SBS.

We are making an effort though to minimize IT costs with the tutorials. I think we're doing well lol.

Networking fundamentals should help you lay the foundation for the network. As many have said, P2P is self explanatory after that. If you want a domain network, we have the SBS Essentials tutorial. There's also the hardware recommendations for servers and desktops. You can build your own to save or you can match it using Dell/Lenovo/HP's customize your computer links. Then, of course, the user board if you have any issues/questions.