Medical Billing - DME Software Install Options

In this installment of medical billing and the DME industry, we're going to focus on the basic setup of the DME software starting with the installation options.

Installation options is the first place that the billing company goes to when first setting up the software to bill. The reason for this is because they want the software to have a certain look and feel for each biller. Plus, as is true with most software for any type of application, they're going to want to setup the software for the particular type of operating system they will be using.

Because most billing companies are fairly large, most DME software packages have the option to setup the software to run on just about any kind of network, whether it be Microsoft, Novell, or even a peer to peer network. However, there are some DME software packages that specifically say not to use on a peer to peer network. So please check with the software company before purchasing their product.

After the software is setup to run on the network, the next step is to customize the look of the software. This ranges from simple things like how the software looks when running to what options are actually shown to the billers. For example, let's say a billing company does not want billers to see patient's social security numbers. An option can be set in the installation options, usually through INI switches, that will make it so that a biller, when looking up information, cannot see a patient's social security number. Most software packages will make this option available for just about any field in the package itself. The most common fields are private information fields, such as social security numbers and credit card numbers and revenue fields, such as total costs. The biller may need to know how much the item bills for, but the company may not want that biller to know what they paid for the item so that the biller can't figure out the profit margin of the company.

Security is a big issue with DME software and this will be covered separately in another installment, but that is something else that is part of installation options. Each biller may have a different level of security.

Another part of the installation options is to designate what parts of the software will actually be used. Many DME software products are so huge that they provide options for a number of things, such as barcoding and purchase order, that many billers don't use. By going into installation options, these extra items can either be added or removed. This is also usually controlled by INI switches.

The final part of installation options usually involves the setup of printers and external devices used for billing and other things. These options are going to vary greatly depending on the capabilities of the software itself. For example. Some DME software will not allow you to use certain kinds of modems or don't support modems at all.

In our next installment of medical billing and DME software, we're cover security in more detail.

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Medical Billing