Friday, March 14, 2008

Invoicera: An Invoice Billing Management and Tracking Software

Are you looking for a payment tracking and invoice software which is simple and powerful? Are you spending too much time entering bills, invoices, purchase order and other data that reoccur periodically?

Invoicera (Invoice Software) has the solution.

Invoicera is professional billing & invoicing software for small to medium businesses invoicing. Invoicera is an invoice billing software which allows you to manage and track your invoicing data. With this flexible billing & invoicing software, you can create invoice, email invoice as a file and manage customer accounts and bills. It is a highly integrated Invoice Software which makes invoicing easy and automatic. The Invoice Billing software allows you to easily manage customers, invoices and payments. Invoicera is a highly integrated Invoice Software which includes a user friendly interface and several easy to use tools to track your payments and make your invoice billing better. The software is simple, easy to learn and allows you to create detailed invoices with ease. It keeps a track of your customer payments, simplifies your bookkeeping and print or email your invoice or quotes. Invoicera includes several easy to use tools to help you manage your professional business and invoicing better. It is an online invoicing software which assists you in invoice tracking and invoice management

Invoicera creates professional invoices automatically. You can print these invoices or save them to a file that you can email. Invoicera is a highly affordable and easy to learn invoice program. Instant reports, track of monthly sales, customer payments, outstanding invoices and tax reports.

Regards

Webmaster

http://www.invoicera.com/

Invoicera is an Online Invoicing Software for Invoicewhich provides invoice-billing-featuresInvoicera is the perfect invoicing software, invoice tracking software, invoice management software and invoice billing software

Labels: , , , ,

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Top 4 Transparency and Accountability Attributes for Electronic Medical Billing Software and Service

Medical billing industry has volumes of arcane terminology and payer- and time-dependent claim validity and pricing interpretation rules, facilitating massive payments of invalid or ineligible claims and denials of error-free claims. Process transparency provides its participants greater visibility of internal process activities. An increased level of access promotes teamwork, increases client satisfaction, and assists in process streamlining.

Billing process is the interaction between the participants (i.e., insurance company (payer), healthcare service provider (provider or doctor), patient, and billing service provider (biller)) designed to pay or deny a payment request (claim) submitted by the biller to the payer and to the patient on behalf of the provider. The amount and complexity of billing information make it very difficult for the doctor to maintain compliance and identify and resolve errors and underpayments.

Billing service transparency allows participants of the billing process to expedite error identification and resolution, resulting in reduced over- and under-payments and improved regulatory compliance.

Attributes of Billing Transparency

Billing transparency has four key attributes, including universality, continuity, ubiquity, and scalability.

  • Universality: every participant in the billing process, including patient, provider, payer, and biller, has access to every aspect of the billing process.
  • Continuity: process detail is available continuously on a 24 x 7 basis.
  • Ubiquity: access to billing process is provided over secure standard Internet browser that requires no special hardware or software and is available everywhere.
  • Scalability: both the big picture and minute detail are available for scrutiny universally and continuously. The big picture consists of total cash flow in a given time period, current submitted and failed claims, and billing quality metric. It must contain comprehensive summary of patient visits and unpaid balances. The minute detail pertains to individual claims making up the big picture, including complete history from the moment of creating the claim, testing its validity and eligibility, making corrections, performing submissions, reconciling payer messages and explanations of benefits (EOB) with original claims, until payment. Both perspectives must allow arbitrary aggregation of claims and drill in for detail to enable effective followup.

How to Build Transparency Into Your Billing Service?

A transparent billing service leverages technology to enable competent personnel to execute disciplined billing process. Therefore, to implement a transparent billing process, you must

[ ] Get access to adequate technology to support universality, continuity, ubiquity, and scalability.

[ ] Develop and thoroughly document claim processing procedures, including compliance and integration with practice workflow.

[ ] Train personnel in following the procedures and using the technology

[ ] Review personally and continuously billing quality, technology capabilities, adequacy of procedures, discipline, and training.

Note that Vericle-like technologies based on Straight Through Billing (STB) methodology implement billing transparency by design because billing transparency is an integral attribute of every component of STB process.

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

Labels: , , , , ,

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Top 10 Selection Criteria for Outsourced Electronic Medical Billing Software as a Service (SaaS)

Software as a Service (SaaS) is the new generation of ASP model designed to reduce the exorbitant costs of specialized medical practice management software. SaaS model is available for all aspects of medical practice management, including scheduling, billing, and electronic medical records (EMR), which are mission-critical for high quality clinical service, business operations, and regulatory compliance. SaaS model extends the advantages of Application Service Provider (ASP) model, which in turn evolves from the traditional Client-Server model. This article briefly defines key concepts and outlines a set of guidelines for SaaS vendor selection.

Client-Server (CS) Model

CS model involves central servers for database and application logic and multiple client modules connected to the central servers via local area network. This architecture allows allocation of significant application logic on the client computer.

Applications architects considering CS model must weigh performance and security advantages against increased maintenance costs. CS benefits stem from local control of application logic and data. CS shortcomings too stem from localizing logic and data because local arrangement requires the user to take responsibility over application maintenance, including data security, redundancy, disaster recovery, upgrades, backups, etc.

The medical practice utilizing CS model must develop in-house expertise and manage numerous services, including

  1. Internet connectivity, bandwidth, and routers
  2. Servers for Web server software, email, and firewalls
  3. Database management
  4. Data feed management
  5. Capacity management
  6. Redundancy management
  7. Application upgrade management

 

Financially, CS models require the software user to make significant upfront investment in hardware and licensing and justify the business case using ROI-based arguments, which make little sense because of software and hardware innovation pace.

Application Service Provider (ASP) Model

ASP model shields the medical practice from high cost of specialized software and data maintenance responsibilities but not from upfront investment in hardware and in software licenses. Early ASP applications were created from traditional CS applications by moving centralized data and application servers to a third-party hosting service provider and allowing access to the application via HTML user interface as an afterthought. The third-party hosting service provider would take the responsibility for application maintenance and data protection.

The medical practice using early ASP model manages two costs:

  1. Licensing and monthly support fee to software vendor
  2. Software hosting fee to hosting vendor (typically a "pay-as-you-use model")

 

Software as a Service (SaaS) Model

SaaS model extends ASP benefits from outsourcing of system maintenance to simplified financial responsibilities. SaaS vendors eliminate the upfront costs to medical practice by making the upfront investment in hardware and licensing on behalf of all medical practices using the application.

To make such a financial commitment, the hosting vendor must develop thorough expertise in application maintenance and new feature development. Such a requirement became feasible with recent technology progress in terms of security (128-bit SSL encryption) and browser-based client performance along with AJAX coding methodology. The new generation technology now compensates for earlier CS model deficiencies and justifies network-native SaaS software development by design.

Because of higher specialization, SaaS vendor is able to focus on client business requirements, resulting in more responsive service and higher client satisfaction.

SaaS Vendor Selection

Medical practice in search of SaaS vendor must focus on the following topics:

  1. Functionality: Does the application deliver all required functionality? Have you documented functional requirements subject to practice business goals, including financial, practice workflow and personnel objectives? Have you considered integrated practice management functionality including patient scheduling, SOAP notes, and billing?

     

     

  2. Training Plan: Will the vendor provide sufficient training? What drives the training process: practice workflow changes or available software functionality?

     

     

  3. Third-Party Application Interface: Does the application work with existing applications already deployed in the office? What data exchange requirements must be satisfied if you decide to purchase another application later?

     

     

  4. Performance: How do you measure application and service performance? Are formal performance metrics available continuously?

     

     

  5. HIPAA Compliance: What controls are in place to enable access only on a "need to see" basis? Is every access instance logged using secure mechanism?

     

     

  6. Service Level Agreement: What minimum service levels does the vendor guarantee to the client? What are the penalties for violating SLA?

     

     

  7. Problem Resolution: Is there a formal process to communicate problem identification and resolution? How is it tracked?

     

     

  8. Data Access and Ownership: Who owns the data? Keep in mind that according to HIPAA, the patient is the ultimate owner of health data. How secure and private is the connection? Does it have Role based Access Control (RBAC)?

     

     

  9. Disaster Recovery: How long would it take to recover from a disaster? Is a secondary data center available 24 x 7?

     

     

  10. Disengagement Procedures: How long is data available upon severing the relationship? Who is responsible for data transfer to the new vendor?

    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

     

Labels: , , , , ,

Friday, December 21, 2007

The Need for HIPAA Complaint Medical Billing Software

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) includes seven sets of rules that will affect your practice. The Department of Health and Human Services, or DHHS, issues these in the form of the ""Notice of Proposed Rule Making"" or NPRM. Every practice, regardless of size, must comply with HIPAA privacy, security and transactional regulations. Moreover, adherence to all subsequent regulations is also required. This covers most everything in your practice, including your medical billing software.

When you are shopping for medical billing software, ask how and for whom the system was designed, and whether the data will be safe and secure on backed-up, protected, HIPAA-compliant servers accessible only to authorized persons. Look for companies who provide free updates to ensure continued efficiency and HIPAA compliance. The new HIPAA standards require huge changes to how healthcare organizations deal with their patient information, including coding, security, patient record management, reimbursement and care management. HIPAA‘s provisions include stringent codes for the unvarying transfer of electronic data, including routine alterations and billing.

Clearly your approach to HIPAA medical billing software must include a serious investigation of software security. Most computer experts will agree that there is no such thing as absolute computer or software security, so working closely with your HIPAA software providers to help determine data deficiencies is a good idea. HIPAA Complaint Medical Billing Software can be easily expanded to meet future needs, and can be targeted directly to the size and complexity of your practice. Options for new HIPAA compliant software have never been better, as there is unlimited scalability, a wide range of customization choices, and a large selection of useful features that will prevent the patients' privacy from being compromised.

Innovations in the technology of medical billing software have created a new criterion for digital precision. Make certain that the HIPAA compliant medical software packager you chose includes all finalized aspects of HIPAA to guarantee full compliance with HIPAA standards as they relate to the electronic transfer of protected health information. The regulations themselves took effect in February 2003, and affect every medical practice in the United States. Effective April 2005, HIPAA mandates security measures to physically and electronically secure electronic protected health information (PHI) against unauthorized retrieval, reliably store the electronic data, and provide for emergency access to the data.

Since most medical billing software packages are now designed to be HIPAA compliant, it is just a matter of choosing the right software for your practice, and your medical billing software will run as smoothly and efficiently as ever.

Medical Billing Software Info provides comprehensive information about medical insurance billing software, HIPAA compliant medical billing software, easy and free medical billing software, and medical billing software prices and reviews. Medical Billing Software Info is the sister site of Medical Billing Web.

Labels: , , , ,