Free Billing Software

Billing software is business accounting software that helps you manage your billing. It was created to help you keep track of projects, hours worked, and what your clients owe you. You can use billing software to manage your professional services business. It automatically creates a variety of reports, so you know how much you have worked, how much to bill, and who owes you what.

Billing software was designed for service industry professionals and anyone else who provides services. There are many kinds of free billing software available on the Internet, including:

Integra Office 5.2: INTEGRA OFFICE combines a powerful time and billing system with the "ultimate scheduler." Bill formats are completely customizable. The software allows any of a client's last ten bills to be re-prepared at any time.

BS/1 Professional 3.06: BS/1 Professional is an integrated time billing and accounting system, handling accounts payable, accounts receivable, general ledger, inventory, time billing, and sales analysis. Multi-currency features facilitate purchasing and international billing.

Excel Invoice Manager Platinum 2.1.1007: by integrating with Microsoft Excel, Excel Invoice Manager Platinum 2.1.1007 provides a true interface, not only for creating and editing invoices, but also for designing your own invoices with various tools provided by Microsoft Excel.

kBilling 1.2.11: kBilling - the ultimate software to use billing application runs on virtually any computer (even Windows 95) and is very simple to operate. Context-sensitive help and an intuitive user interface allows even the most novice computer user to invoice customers in seconds, not hours.

VOIP Call Shop Billing Software 5.1: using this system, you can even grant customers credit by taking payments before even they make their call. You have two options: bill your customers after the completion of a call (post-paid billing) and accept payment before they make a call (pre-paid billing).

InstantInvoice 3 3.4.8: InstantInvoice 3 3.4.8, an invoicing, billing and quotation software for small businesses, tracks customer payments and outstanding invoices. There is a powerful search-and-find option to find past invoices and quotes.

All of the above software runs on Windows 98, NT 4.0, 2000, ME and XP.

Billing Software provides detailed information on Billing Software, VoIP Billing Software, Chiropractic Billing Software, Free Billing Software and more. Billing Software is affliated with HIPAA Complaint Medical Billing Software

Top 5 Metrics For Chiropractic Office Billing Software and Service Performance

Effective practice management depends on solid billing performance. Its measurement is an integral part of practice management process and its importance grows in step with growth of patient volume. Traditional billing metrics are limited in scope and focus on claim submission process, ignoring process imperfections on the insurance (payer) side. Modern computer technologies allow both measurement and action to improve revenue cycle efficacy and efficiency.

Useful metrics must be comprehensive and simple. They must combine both complete end-to-end processes and their individual components. Metrics must be used consistently over time and compared to standards.

 

1. Days in Accounts Receivable (DAR)

    

   A growing number of days in accounts receivable are symptomatic of a faulty billing process. One way to determine DAR is to count days from the date of service to the date of payment for every claim and then average across all claims. A simpler way to compute average number of days in accounts receivable by taking a ratio of accounts receivable to average daily charges, or

   DAR = (Accounts Receivable / Average Charge) x 365

   The main downside is this metric is its sensitivity to provider as it counts the lag time of unsubmitted claims for services already delivered.

   One obvious advantage of DAR metric is its independence of charges. The averaging feature of this metric eliminates sensitivity to specific day or CPT code but also hides the behavior shape of the accounts receivable curve.

   Note that national average of DAR hovers around 73 days. Advanced billing service providers leveraging powerful Vericle technologies often drive average DAR as low as 15 days.

    

2. Percent of Accounts Receivable Beyond 60, 90, and 120 Days (PARB60, PARB90, and PARB120)

    

   PARBX resolves the sensitivity issue of DAR metric and offers simple and charge-invariant metric of billing process. Its graphic representation has a skewed bell shape. Its steepness represents billing process quality: a steep curve and thin tail means healthy billing process, while a flat bell and a fat tail means billing problems.

   According to the MGMA survey, 25.35 percent of the average family practice's accounts receivables were more than 120 days old in 1997. This number has improved down to 17.7% in 2004.

   PARBX metric is especially helpful to identify patterns of problem claims containing specific payer or CPT code. Advanced billing service providers leveraging powerful Vericle technologies often drive average PARB120 as low as 5%, significantly below the national average of 17.7%.

   Further, PARB120 has been used to develop rule-based Billing Performance Index, which helps the development of billing industry standards. Chiropractors can use the index to benchmark their billing performance and to guide its improvement over time. Rule-based index definition allows for automated inclusion and exclusion of payers in the index based on payer attributes, such as numbers of processed claims, accounts receivable distribution, certain mix of CPT codes, or patient demographics.

    

3. First-Pass Pay (FPP Rate) and Denial Rate

    

   FPP is the percentage of claims paid in full the first time upon submission (subject to federal or state timely payment regulations: 15 days for electronic submission and 30 days - for paper).

   Denial rate is the complementary metric to FPP rate. It counts the percent of claims that require followup and therefore cost more to process. Followup may take the form of a phone call to payer to discover a lost claim or to receive interpretation of denial message, correction of earlier submitted data, resubmission of the original claim, consultation with the provider and medical notes, or denial appeal.

   Both FPP and Denial rates are very important metrics often used for billing process improvement. The upside of FPP/Denial metric is that it is charge-invariant but its downside is that it hides the differences between process imperfections on the claim submission and claim payment sides. To identify patterns of problem CPT codes or payers, FPP/Denial metric needs to be computed and compared across all pairs of payer-CPT code, which is a standard feature for modern billing technologies.

    

4. Patient Liability Rate

    

   Percent of Patient Liability is the ratio of patient responsibility to total billed charges and it roughly reflects patient deductibles. This measure is important in measuring front office function as it has little to do with clean claim submission or effective followup.

    

5. Collection Ratios

    

   Gross and net collection ratios metrics used to be popular metrics in the early day of digital computing. They compare (often arbitrary) charges to (allowed) payments. Net collection rate is defined as a ratio of Total Collections and Total Charges less Adjustments. Gross collection rate is defined as a ratio of Total Collections to Total Charges only. The main drawback of Collection Ratios metrics is the use of charges in defining gross and net collections, which precludes productive discovery of process improvement opportunities.

    

 

In summary, comprehensive and charge-invariant billing metrics, such as PARBX, are more informative and objective than collection ratios. Modern Vericle-like technology using such metrics helps identifying billing bottlenecks as it allows interactive review of multiple metrics along different aggregation dimensions.

Yuval Lirov, PhD, author of "Practicing Profitability - Network Effect for Revenue Cycle Control in Healthcare Clinic and Chiropractic Office: Scheduling, SOAP Notes, Care Plans, Coding, Billing, Collections, and Audit Risk" (Affinity Billing) and "Mission Critical Systems Management" (Prentice Hall), inventor of patents in Artificial Intelligence and Computer Security, and CEO of Vericle.net - Distributed Billing and Practice Management Technologies. Yuval invites you to register to the next webinar on audit risk at BillingPrecision.com.

How To Choose The Right Billing Software For Your Small Business

If you own or manage a small business, you know how much time can be spent chasing down paper invoices, purchase orders and sales reports. It can be a real nightmare! That is where billing software comes in. It allows you to record all your customers, sales, invoices, inventory, suppliers (and more) in a PC-based system that is easy to use.

Deciding that you need to invest in good quality billing software is not hard. The tricky part can be choosing the right software package for your requirements. There are dozens of systems on the market claiming to be the holy grail of all your business problems, but choosing the wrong one can cost you valuable time and money.

Here's a simple checklist of 11 things to look for when purchasing billing software for your small business:

1) Customer records

This is the core element of any billing system. What sort of information do you need to record about your customers? There's the obvious things like address, phone, fax, mobile, email and web address. But what about marketing-related information like "how did the customer find out about your business?", and "standard discounts" for key clients.

2) Multiple contacts & Communication history

If many of your clients are businesses with multiple contacts, can you record individual contact details for each person? Word of mouth is the most powerful form of advertising, and statistics show that one of the most important factors in customer satisfaction is good customer service. Have you thought about keeping a log of all communication with your customers? It can be extremely helpful for improving internal communication within your business, and results in a more personalised service for your clients.

3) Multiple shipments

Obviously your billing software will need to create sales orders - that's a gimme. But do you need to record employee-related information, like who the "salesperson" was? What about flexible dispatch options, like multiple shipments per sales order?

4) Search facility

There's no point recording all this really useful information if there's no easy way to get to it. Check that the search facility is flexible and easy to use. What criteria can you search by? Here are a couple useful fields you may want to use: customer phone number, customer address, order date, dispatch date and dispatch consignment number.

5) Tax & regional support

Are you able to change the tax rates on an order line basis? What about currency formatting? If you and your clients are in Europe, then there's no point using billing software that can only handle US dollars.

6) Reporting

Producing accurate reports in seconds is something you no longer have to dream about. In fact it is a necessity in today's competitive market. Ensure your billing software can calculate information on sales based on date, salesperson and customer type. If you operate a B2B business, another key performance indicator may be dispatch totals, based on date, and employee. But one important thing to remember about software... you can only get out what you put in. So if you are looking for a specific report, make sure that information is being recorded by your billing software package.

7) Backup

I've seen first-hand how devastating a hardware failure can be. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of data can be destroyed in seconds... if you do not have a backup procedure in place. Ensure you select a billing software package that has a built-in backup utility or works with your current backup system.

8) Online help & support

If you're a new computer user, then you'll definitely need a software package that has a comprehensive online and easy-to-use help system. Also check out what direct technical support is available through the vendor. Some software companies charge very high fees for personal support, so ensure you include this in your budget.

9) Budget

How much are you going to spend? That really depends on the complexity of the software package you are looking for. Smaller software packages can be found under US$100, and larger more complex packages can cost well over US$3000. Take a look at the number of customers you have, the number of sales orders you process, and choose a solution that fits your business.

10) Customisations

If you purchase an off-the-shelf billing software package, you may require minor customisations to suit your unique business processes and industry. Some software vendors offer customisations at quite reasonable prices. But ensure you include this cost in your budget.

11) Other features

What else do you want from you billing software? If you deal with fixed price products, you may need a comprehensive inventory management system allowing you to purchase stock, manage inventory levels and supplier relations. Some quality software packages also include a useful follow-up diary, allowing you to keep track of tasks and assign them to other staff members.

When choosing a billing software package for your business, make sure you check that it offers everything your business needs. And then the only thing you'll have to worry about is what to do with all your newly found spare time!

Josh Bender is an experienced database developer and qualified software engineer. He helps small-to-medium businesses streamline processes and improve efficiency using reliable and proven software solutions. Take a free test drive of 'InstantSalesTracker', easy-to-use billing software: http://www.InstantSalesTracker.com

Intelligent Electronic Medical Billing and SOAP Notes Software Requirements

Doctors and therapists must produce clinical documentation in ever increasing volumes and detail to ensure best healthcare, get medical claims paid in full and on time, and protect the practice from post-payment audits and unfair litigation.

But visit documentation speed conflicts with documentation accuracy and thoroughness. For insurance companies, patient visit documentation must be precise and comprehensive. If the quality of documentation is high, the medical billing appeals on unpaid claims are paid faster and at a higher rate. Otherwise, appeals are denied and the practice becomes vulnerable to post-payment audits, refunds, and penalties.

Insurance companies do not care how long does it take to produce good documentation. But for provider, slow documentation impedes practice profitability and wastes valuable time. The doctor must be done with visit documentation by the time the patient leaves the office.

To ensure comprehensive note coverage, healthcare industry adopted a two-pronged structured approach. First, the doctor uses SOAP notes format, which reflects four key stages of patient care, starting from Subjective observations, to Objective symptoms, to diagnostic Assessment, and culminating with treatment Plan:

 

1. SUBJECTIVE: The initial portion of the SOAP note format consists of subjective observations. These are symptoms typically expressed verbally by the patient. They include the patient's descriptions of pain or discomfort, the presence of nausea or dizziness or other descriptions of dysfunction.

    

    

2. OBJECTIVE: The next part of the format include symptoms actually be measured, seen, heard, touched, felt, or smelled. Included in objective observations are vital signs such as temperature, pulse, respiration, skin color, swelling and the results of diagnostic tests.

    

    

3. ASSESSMENT: Assessment is the diagnosis of the patient's condition based on Subjective observations and Objective symptoms. In some cases the diagnosis may be a simple determination while in other cases it may include multiple diagnosis possibilities.

    

    

4. PLAN: The last part of the SOAP note is the treatment plan, which may include laboratory and/or radiological tests ordered for the patient, medications ordered, treatments performed (e.g., minor surgery procedure), patient referrals (sending patient to a specialist), patient disposition (e.g., home care, bed rest, short-term, long-term disability, days excused from work, admission to hospital), patient directions and follow-up directions for the patient.

    

    

 

Next, each one of the four key SOAP stages consists of templates reflecting multiple possibilities for each stage. Templates, organized according to SOAP order, ensure comprehensive coverage and allow the doctor simply check multiple selection boxes on the screen driven by a computer program.

Templates have attracted two-fold criticism both from the provider and the payer sides. The providers dislike the lack of built-in intelligence to reflect individual doctor's preferences to treat patients. The payers often suspect template-generated notes of low quality and poor reflection of true patient state and treatment progress because template susceptibility to mechanical clicking and difficulty of interpretation.

The challenge is to combine the advantages of template and verbose formats without their shortcomings to describe precise patient condition, ensure productive medical billing, prepare for regulatory scrutiny, and improve practice productivity. To overcome the perception of mechanically generated notes while saving the doctor the time to type, some vendors have created specialized products that use randomized wording for each template. Such automatically generated notes include sentence structures, which closely resemble natural speech patterns.

Flexibility and integration must be key design features of SOAP notes. In the opening section, for example, you create new patient files that grow organically with each visit or treatment. Built-in intelligence allows you to customize a document to your own preferences and observe the entire patient progress history in a single screen. Native system integration with medical billing systems, enable automated claim generation, validation, and submission to payers for payment.

SOAP notes must not merely emulate the paper folder that every doctor has for every patient. They must use computer technology to help automate routine tasks and create a faster, easier, and error free process to increase practice profitability and reduce its audit risks.

Yuval Lirov, PhD, author of "Practicing Profitability - Network Effect for Revenue Cycle Control in Healthcare Clinic and Chiropractic Office: Scheduling, SOAP  Care Plans, Coding, Billing, Collections, and Audit Risk" (Affinity Billing) and "Mission Critical Systems Management" (Prentice Hall), inventor of patents in Artificial Intelligence and Computer Security, and CEO of Vericle.net - Distributed Billing and Practice Management Technologies. Yuval invites you to register to the next webinar on audit risk at BillingPrecision.com.