Home Forums Discussions General Discussion EZ claims and Medisoft

I see a lot of posts about EZ claims, but I have not seen anyone actually say they are using and llike EZ claims. I have seen a lot of posts about sure data and mtbc (sp?). If you are using it, what do you like or dislike

Several years ago I used medisost, but to do electronic billing it would be a $600 upgrade and then $1500 for the connect to amazing charts. I am looking for other alternatives.

If you are using a medisoft link is it working well? Do you do electronic billing through it?

There is possibly a great alternative called.....Amazing Charts Practice Managment Module. There are a few of us who keep trying to wait Jon out. We all know he is writing code and working on but where is it? I recommend that more folks like yourself politely bug and email Jon. He seems to respond to well meaning, persistant users with serious requests. Honestly, the more the better.
But if you want something "Today" then I think that EZ-Claims does not need the x-link interface to connect the two databases together. I'm trying to wait Jon out and not have to go that route....

The only problem is that my contract with my current billing company is ending at the end of the year, and I am not satsified with them. It would be nice to make a clean break at the beginning of the year.

WE HAVE USED EZ CLAIMS SINCE 3/06. AS A BILLING PACKAGE, IT WORKS WELL. WE FORWARD MEDICARE CLAIMS THRU ECLAIMS AND ARE VERY SATISFIED SO FAR (SUPPORT IS AWESOME). HOWEVER (AND A B...I...G... HOWEVER!) EZ CLAIMS ADMITS THAT THEY ARE NOT AN ACCOUNTING PACKAGE. THIS CAN BE VERY CUMBERSOME WHEN YOU HAVE PAYMENTS ON ACCTS (THEY HAVE VERY FEW PAYMENT ENTRY OPTIONS), OR TRY TO POST CORRECTED INS PMTS. HOPEFULLY, THIS WILL BE WORKED OUT SOMEDAY. FOR A SMALL PRACTICE LIKE OURS, IT HAS WORKED CHEAPLY, AND FAIRLY WELL.

DONNA

I am going to use EZclaim for now until Jon can get the PM software out. . It going to be wonderful to have total integrated package. Hopefully it won't cost us solo docs an arm and a leg

I've not used EZClaim, but when I looked at it, there seemed to be a lot of add-on modules that were needed to electronic claims.

As many of you know, the billing company I've been dealing with has been less than satisfactory. For example...I've still not gotten anything they have billed to BlueCross/Shield (this has been going on for nearly 3 months). :evil:

On October 9th, I manually submitted claims for recent visits via Office Ally. I received payment today...just 10 days later. :P

I think for now I'll stick with Office Ally and hope that we get a fix so that we can upload our files directly from AC to OA soon...and I'll keep my fingers crossed for the Amazing Charts Practice Management Solution.


Barbara

I did not know about office ally. When I billed before, I used THIN (BCBS). Because of some managed care agreements, I am required to bill electronically. That's been fine because of faster payments and lower rejections, but ...

After reading your post, I took a look at Office Ally. Sounds impressive! So they can accept an electronic image of a HCFA 1500, which can currently be done by AC? If we could do a direct "data dump" there would be less likelihood of error.

I wonder if AC to EZ claims could directly export the files to them, bypassing more expensive clearinghouses and making a fairly simple "bridge" to electronic billing. Anyone doing this?

What other options for billings are folks using out there?

Being able to export our data from AC to OfficeAlly would be great, but there is a tiny problem with box 33 on the CMS-1500. Take a look at this thread: http://www.amazingcharts.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=144

A fix for that box would solve many a problem. In the meantime, you can enter your claims manually. The good thing about this is that OA will save you data so that you are not entering the same stuff over and over again. Filing a claim on a repeat patient literally takes seconds.

Although I thought I had read all the posts before addinig mine, somehow I had overlooked the entry with the obvious title of biling, oops.

Yes, I saw that it could be manually entered, but if one used EZ claims it would save the employee cost of entering it.

That being said, I actually had not looked at EZ claims for about 6 months and noted their prices have somewhat increased. Still reasonable, but slightly higher than I initially estimated. Still, at this juncture it seems the easiest way out. Thats the reason for this post. I was considering using it with quickbooks which would then bring the cost around
S550 - $1000 with advanced and quickbooks

Office Ally may be an easy solution to wait for Jon as well. We do a lot of government claims and I also need to look factor in that cost as well.

THIN does not charge for government claims if you send all your claims to them. But I need an electronic module ($$$) to connect via EZ claims.

I don't want to rush Jon, but then again.....

This is rambling a bit but all relatively important aspects. Billing seems to universally be the biggest problem of many medical practices.

Oh, I left out the obvious, that EZ claims could solve the line 33 problem.

Would that then mean AC to EZ then straight to OA (lots of initials)?

Anyone doing this? Any issues?

This would be fairly straightforward.

Each and everyone of you PLEASE, email Jon now!!! :!: I get the feeling from Carlos that they do not read this message board very often. He needs to hear from all of us and how this is the one thing we all need more than anything else, now that the reminder seems to be out of the way. This really is Job One. All us little offices need a way to take back control of our own businesses before bad things happen to all of us. I'm also fairly confident that this one large feature would increase his sales tremendously. It seems to be the one thing that make many people stop and think twice about AC. Jon are you out there???

:?: This may seem a bit silly but...How did all of you learn Medical Billing??? :?:
For those of us with really small offices that don't already have a "billing" person on staff how exactly have all of you learned the difficult ins and outs of all this garbage? As someone who has never done billing I look at some of the PM web-sites and I feel totally lost and out of my element. What features are important, which aren't, just what do we need this thing to do? Do I need strong and flexible like Altapoint or simple and straight up like EZ-Claims???
Is there a "Medical Billing for Idiots" type book out there that one can read and refer back to as a crash course in billing? I want to be able to take back our practice for Nancy and me, but I'm not even sure I would know how to set it up because I don't know what it needs or what it really should be doing. Worse yet we all have various carriers that have ridiculous requirements of just how to send things in and transmit back and forth with them. Now the carriers are even trying to make money by acting as a clearing houses for all your claims. Is there ever a way to get paid in this business without letting some no good, un-needed, parasite get a too large a chunk of our money???

There are courses that are offered, and some books. Both the AAP and AAFP have courses during their meetings. The AAP has written materials as well, probably AAFP as well. Sorry, as a pediatrician I don't know much about the IM or Surg offerings, but IM is probably similar. Surgery is totally different.

Just as insurances are designed to be complicated to confuse the consumer, they are also designed to confuse us. The only one who will benefit is the insurance company. Most have a "hold harmless" clause, such that if YOU don't follow their rules and they don't pay, you cannot bill the patient.

I agree that this would be a great add on to Amazing Charts. If we could plug into something like Office Ally and then plug into a basic accounting program like Quickbooks, it would simplify things greatly and the major changes would be interfaces with these systems (and it sounds like only one box needs to be changed for Office Ally).

Only problem I can see with dumping straight from AC to officeally is that you can't keep track of payments. Lets say you billpatient 80 bucks and insurance pays 40 and patient owes 30, write off 10. I don't think AC has the aging reports that EZ claim does. This is what I am doing, AC to EZ claim to Officeally. Unfortunately, I am in Texas and officeally cannot bill electronically to BCBS of Texas yet. So they will have to drop to paper for me Hopefully, they will get BCBS of Texas on their list soon.

I thought BCBS of IL, TX and NM were all one group. In IL we can bill BCBS through THIN which is owned by them. I thought I saw on office ally that they connect to THIN.
Same corporation but different rules. I found a weblink for THIN ( I think through Office Ally) which was specifically for TX and NM. I noticed that their rates were less than IL. You can access www.BCBSIL.com and go to the provider section to find the IL rules and rates.
Again more money but had you considered hooking Quickbooks to EZclaims to do aging and account management?

To bill through THIN in Texas, EZclaim requires you to buy a 795 dollar module. Isn't officeally and THIN both clearinghouses? I could be wrong. Right now, officeally said BCBS of Texas is not on the electronic list. They will drop it to paper for me

It's been awhile. Any word on PM module? Joseph?

Question; has anyone besides me written Jon explaining just how badly we need the Practice Managment Module??? So your homework assignment for the holidays is as follows; Write Jon, Write Jon, Write Jon....Everybody PLEASE Write Jon. Oh and by the way....Write Jon.... We need our Practice Managment beta now. jon@amazingcharts.com Happy Thanksgiving everyone from beautiful Central New York
Paul

I've been very happy with using 1996 version Medisoft ($69), and linking to Office Ally by sending a Textfile. Appears I cannot directly bill via AC to Office Ally. With in NPI needing to be inserted, I am hoping that AC will produce a PM module. My deadline is December, 2006 and unfortunately, there has been no word from Jon with regards to what he is working on currently.

Last I heard, Jon said the PM program will come in around 1st quarter of next year. Forced me to buy EZCLAIM which has done a good job for now.