Home Forums Discussions Problems "Customize This" CMS-1500 Export File Beta-3.0.28

For Extra Credit-
When exporting a CMS-1500 or "Health care claim form" The resulting .txt file expresses box 33 of that form ("physician's suppliers's billing name, address, zip code & phone") all on one line. My clearing house
needs the entered info to be broken into 3 lines instead of all on one. Can anybody think of a way to change the properties of the exported form?
Im using Beta-3.0.28
correct answer= 25 points
IMADO

This one took me a very long time to figure out. There are fields that you can edit to change this! But, after one particulary frustating session, I tried the following:

Edit it directly on the CMS 1500 form! Pull any superbill then "Print CMS-1500" on the bottom left. Then scroll down to Box 33. Click on the text there to edit those fields. After you edit it on one form then each and ever subsequent forms will be corrected.

=) Where's my 25 points?

Steve

Great job Steve. I give you 125 points.

You guys are AWESOME! 8)

This is exactly what I've been trying to figure out for the last two days!

Thank you!

Give that man 1250 points!

In appreciation,

Barbara
~going to try it out now

Well, it works great on the box 33, however, when I export to the "CMS-1500 text file", everything in text is still one one line without any line breaks in the txt file itself. I noticed that the field breaks (if that is the proper term) are ^ signs, however box 33 is all one field.

I hope this makes sense and I hope someone else has another suggestion.

We are trying to upload to Office Ally and they require the information in box 33 be broken into separate segments.

Thanks,

Barbara

When I wrote...

I was so excited I failed to read Raineys post. I'll be back....

Rainy-
Did you try uploading the file to see if it would bounce?
Matt
offc mgr for
Rosann Volmert D.O.
Pasadena Ca

I feel like I'm watching "Whose Line"....a 1000 points for everybody!!!
Sorry I couldn't resist....
Paul

Ah...a thousand points all around ! I like that.

Matt...no I did not try to upload it. When I looked at the test file there was absolutlely no difference in the string of text, so it did not make sense.

Since I posted this, I see that someone else (IMADO?) wrote in another thread that we cannot batch to upload to Office Ally...so I guess that is part of my problem.

Barbara

Gosh, I'm using Office Ally too and I can't batch upload either. I've had to resort to typing it into their "generic" form generater individually. What a pain! Maybe if we put all our heads together, we could get this done.

I don't know why Office Ally can't do it since all the fields with the delimiters are there already. It appears that they want it to be in the text format with the spaces as if you were to print it exactly onto the CMS-1500 file.

Something like instead of:
<name>,<address>,<Sex>,<DOB>
Joe Schmoe, 123 no where st.,M,12/4/54

They want:
Joe schoe M 12/4/54
123 no where st.

I'm trying right now to do a work around. Export the file then import it into MS Excel. Using that as a database and generate a mail mergeMS Word. So far no luck because it will "PRINT" ok but if you try to export it as a text file, it will take out all the spaces.

Anyone working on this??? Perhaps we can get the programmers to give us an option to dump pure text only with all the spaces?

Do they even read this forum?

When I spoke to Office Ally about this, the export into the CMS file is fine except for box 33. So it's only box 33 that needs changing as far as uploading.

However, I learned something else as well. I spoke with the folks at Premera Blue Cross...you HAVE to use the online form to submit. For some reason using the upload and the Office Ally form does not work for them. I have no idea if there are other insurance companies that are like this.

I've found no other work arounds for this. At least once the information is input into the form, it's saved, so next time on that pt you only need to add the appropriate codes and dates.

Barbara

Okay-
1st you can upload a batch TODAY.
Having read your posts I can tell that you have all gone through the same learning proccess that I have. I FEEL YOUR PAIN. I have been wrestling with this magilla for months. Im close to a resolution and with your help we all may get what we need. Jon Berman has told me that he is working on the upload file glitch. However, I dont think this is a huge priority there so Im not sure when I can expect the fix. If we all request in unison Im certain it will happen sooner rather than later. If you want to upload a batch TODAY you can. A method that I know will work to upload "in batch" is to use EZclaim advanced ed. I ran the 30 day trail and it did in fact work. I had about 100 encounters that had piled up and WHAM- they uplaoded. PLEASE NOTE- It wasn’t entirely without issues, but I seem to remember that it only took a couple of tries. Why dont I just buy the software? Because I’m trying to start this practice on a cash basis and I dont need (or want) to be able to track account statis and all the other really interesting stuff that goes along with billing insurance.


Once Im able to submit to Office Ally directly from A/C Ill be able to spend time marketing this practice rather than pecking out each cliam line by line on Office ally's online claim form. Below is some of the back and forth Ive been doing with A/C and Office Ally. If your in the same boat, email Jon and let him know that more than one customer would stand to gain when this gets fixed.

When I upload to Office Ally direct from AC this is the email that comes back with the rejected file.
"CMS1500.20060915.1211.txt.xxx
This file is in a new custom file format. The file for the most part
looks good.
Box 31, Physician Signature, has the Physician Signature and Signature Date in one field, throwing off the rest of the fields there after.
Also, for Facility and Supplier address, they need to be sent as
Facility/Supplier1 (Name)
Facility/Supplier3 (Street Address)
Facility/Supplier4 (City)
Facility/Supplier4 (State
Facility/Supplier4 (Zip)
Facility/Supplier phone
As separate fields so we can parse them correctly. I'm assuming this is a test file, and due to the formatting, I will delete this file. Please resubmit with the suggested info, to work towards a processible file.
Sincerely,
Richard Sanchez
Office Ally File Support
Richard.Sanchez@OfficeAlly.com

So I forward this to Jon with a note on the dilemma.
He responds

Hi Matt,
Why doesn't the CMS1500 work, is it the box 31 they allude to? If I fix that and the facility/supplier - will it be fine?
Jon
[/color]

I email Richard at Office Ally asking to clarify so I dont send Jon on a goose chase.
He responds
[color:blue]This file appears to be a custom, csv (comma separated value) type file. With the value being ^ instead of a comma. I was asking for the Facility and Supplier address', to be broken down into the necessary fields, as we can not parse a full facility address in one field. For example, part of your header = "^32-FacilityAddr^"

We need something along the lines of ^32-Facility_Namer^32-Facility_StreetAddr^32-Facility_City^32-Facility_State^32-Facility_Zip^

Each part of that address, broken down into parseable data. The same would apply to Supplier Address. It was done for the patient and insured address fields. Thank you for your time and cooperation. Please feel free to reply with any questions or comments you may have.

Sincerely,

Richard Sanchez


So I send this to Jon with a request to fix the problem and I havent heard back. I know for a fact that the man is up to his eyeballs in customer requests and I dont think mine is more important than the next persons. So in keeping with democracy and the free enterprize system help me form a vocal group of loyal A/C supporters that can exert some positive pressure to achieve our common good! So email him and lets get to uploadin!
If you want to reach me look at IMADO's Profile- and write or call.
Matt
of Rosann Volmert D.O.
Pasadena Ca

Those fields should be static for your practice anyways. I'll try to work on it this weekend to see if I can make an Excel macro to do this. Even better is if Jon would fix this issue.

I got busy and couldn't work on this issue. Anyone tried their hand at fixing this?

The problem I'm running into is the spacing is way off when I try to print the 1500. The top of the form is lined up perfectly but half way down the middle of the form the print gets higher until at the bottom my name and address is about an inch above where it should be. Any thoughts on this?

I too have had this problem, but am too unsophisticated and my practice is too small to spend a lot of time on it, so I'm back to submitting by US Mail.

I just spoke to one of my major payors, however, and they said that they like having Office Ally submit the electronic claims, but I can do so directly, without them.

All my EMR system has to do is submit the data in ANSI-837 format. I could get an outside service to do this, but it seems like just a formatting issue. I would be willing to pay extra to have AC do this. The information is there. It would be OK with me if AC partnered with one of the vendors of this reformatting software to make this as seamless as possible.

It does seem silly to have an EMR system, print out the CMS1500, then mail it in an envelope when the payors are requesting electronic submission.

(Editorial comment--they're the ones with the capital. They could get their IT dept to make a fax reception number take every typed/computer generated 1500 as a pdf file, OCR it, and put these data into whatever format they wanted. It would not be difficult, given the uniformity of 1500 forms. AC could then just fax in the form it already produces.)

No Wait! . That format is large billers or clearing houses use to submit directly each individual payer. What OFFICE ALLY wants is a "Print Image" format. Amazing Charts does this BUT... It has flaw in box 33 of the HICFA-1500 form. As a result Office Ally wont take it. What I’ve done is purchase “EXCLAIM Advanced” billing software with the Print Image module. (You can demo it for 30 days free) A $400.00 "work around" that is cumbersome and I kinda regret. I still hope that Jon Berman will get to the CMS-1500 issue. Email him with the request and perhaps it will speed things up.
Good luck!

What all you users really need to do is email Jon regularly about building and beta releasing his own practice managment module. He is supposedly working on it, but it seems to be a ways off. But it seems that the squeaky wheels in AC do get some grease....I remember someone posted note saying he ran into Jon and Jon said that the PM is coming this winter....An AC designed PM would solve all these issues. Please everyone, write to Jon and let him know how much we all need it, want it and would apperciate it.

Ok, I worked at it today and it should be working now. If anyone would like to try this then please email me at scslmd AT hotmail dot COM with the title "AmazingCharts to OfficeAlly Macro".

Basically I created a Microsoft Excel Macro that will prompt you for the exported file and convert it to a tab delimited text file with the new fields for upload to OfficeAlly. There is one step that needs to be done so please email me if you want to try this. Once I can confirm on my side (by submitting claims) and other people have used it successfully, I will type up the directions and share steps and the Excel macro with everyone.

This method would eliminate any additional costly software options.

Please note that you will need Microsoft Excel to do this.

*crossing fingers*

how is it working now? i ran into the same roadblock.

i've talked with OA, AC, emailed scsl, talked with matt @ roseann's office (another user here), and i'm still not sure what to do.
OA wants the billing file in their format; AC has other fish to fry right now (lab interface), scsl hasn't replied yet with his/her excel macro, and i still need to get billing done, and don't want to go back to yet another billing parasite.
if i knew how to create the excel macro, i would.
the only options/combination thereof i can think of are:
a) continue to do billing by mail, editing each form
b) enter billing info into OA online
c) email scsl again
d) try to figure out how to create the excel macro myself
e) ask OA to create the macro
f) wait for AC to do it
g) go back to a billing parasite
in the midst of all of this, i am wondering why the last post here is more than a month ago. this seemed to be a hot topic, and now it's dead.
what gives?

Larry et al,
I've found that banging my head on a wall for a long time gets boring so I’ve switched to hitting my thumbnail with a hammer on another topic. I know the fun wont last, but for now...
I think I've found a way to mobilize a mass "UPLOAD THIS" emailing campaign to get heard on this issue. A real ground swell, grass roots, order of magnitude kind of thing. I will be forced to use some fairly distasteful tactics, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Stand by for the next few days and watch All the topics- ADVISORY: Sensitive and young A/C users are advised that some of the posted material may be disturbing.

On 01/19/2007 OFFICE ALLY export format added in BETA. YES- Its here! At least in beta. Here's the link
http://www.amazingcharts.com/beta/
Yes YES YESSSS

Hold it! as of 01/27/07 OFFICE ALLY export format is not working yet. Ive contacted A/C and was told they're working on it. My apologies for my previous post, I may have jumped the gun.

any updates on this yet? are people using AC with paper billing for now? it seems like the facility info isn't getting filled out on the automated cms1500 forms...

for now, we're using OA for billing, and AC for charting, with all the redundancies.