Downloadable Billing Software

You run your own business. Do you have a system when it comes to billing? If not, then you could be losing money. Downloadable billing software is a great option when you are looking for something that will make your billing tasks easier. Are you not sure you need to buy downloadable billing software?

There are a lot of benefits for using downloadable billing software for your business. The first is that it will help your business run smoother. When you need to type and print every invoice by hand, this wastes time, especially if you have a lot of work to do.

Downloadable billing software can also help eliminate paper waste by making your business more electronic. Printing extra copies of your business transactions is not necessary, as long as you constantly back up all your customer files. If you only have your files in one location, if something happens, it can spell disaster. Possible ways to back up your files include having an extra hard drive, putting all on a DVD or CD, and putting the information on more than one computer.

Another benefit is that downloadable billing software can do more than just take care of accounting tasks. The extra features are nice, especially if they save you money. Some let you print out labels and create reports and other business documents. You can also have the software automatically generate statements on a specified time period, which is nice if the service you perform for the customer is ongoing, such as a long-term contract project.

Downloadable billing software makes running your business a lot easier. It helps automate your business, keep track of billing and accounting, and generate automated statements. Once you find the software that is best for your business, it will make your business run a lot smoother.

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

4-Step Training Video for Chiropractic Office Billing Software and Compliant SOAP Notes

Chiropractic office billing software has become mission critical component for chiropractic office profitability and post-payments audit risk management. Practice management systems automate most clinic operation activities, starting with patient check in, SOAP note editing, insurance claim creation, and medical billing.

Unfortunately, the high level of computer skill required by the prohibitively complex chiropractic office management solutions often hinders the doctor's ability to use such solutions correctly, especially for compliant visit documentation and billing. Instead of increasing office productivity and efficiency, technology becomes yet an additional obstacle and profitability impediment. Its high cost and user training problems add insult to injury and frustrate even seasoned and accomplished practice owners.

Since insufficient notes are the most frequent reason for failing a post-payment insurance audit, timely filing of compliant SOAP notes and submission of congruent insurance claims are the most mission critical parts of any practice management automation solution. But SOAP notes and insurance billing are also the most complex parts of such solutions, often confusing doctors and assisting personnel and degrading practice profitability. The ability to manage compliant notes in minimal time without delaying the patient flow is especially important in a high-volume practice environment.

Component-driven SOAP notes are both audit-proof compliant and require minimal time spent for visit documentation. Chiropractors using Vericle's SOAP notes, receive a training video, which has two parts. The first video trains chiropractors taking SOAP notes during the initial visit and the second – during subsequent visits. The training video follows a four-step outline:

1. Systems menu selection to access patient SOAP notes from Appointment Scheduler
2. Date and Doctor selection
3. Component-driven narrative creation for accelerated and compliant editing:
   1. Patient has Subjective complaints
   2. Objective tests show problems that support patient's complaints
   3. Activities and Daily Living of the patients suffer because of same complaints, which are confirmed by objective tests
   4. Show diagnosis Assessment isolating the problem for treatment
   5. Comprehensive Plan shows specific actions with measurable improvement objectives including starting time, treatment duration, and expected benefit.
4. Subsequent visit documentation - select existing SOAP note components for change:
   1. Few individual notes can be the same or even show occasional exacerbation
   2. Overall the series of notes demonstrate a trend of improvement across Subjective complaints, Objective tests, and ADLs
   3. Assessment and Plan often stay the same until re-exam

Chiropractors using Vericle system have access to the training video directly from any screen on the system using a special-purpose Wiki (shared knowledge repository on the Web). Combining Wiki with video technology solve many of the difficult training problems of chiropractic office owners and managers for compliant visit documentation and billing. Such combined training solution amplifies the advantages of individual training video materials with Wiki's ability to reach every chiropractic office, share experience of real-world experts, and help practice owners and managers stay smart at their pace and on just the content they need to know. The “on-demand” nature of an integrated solution enables doctors to learn from experts wherever and whenever it is most convenient to learn.

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.

Electronic Medical Billing Software - Client-Server Versus Application Service Provider (ASP)

Electronic Medical Record (EMR) and digital billing systems offer substantial clinical care, financial, practice workflow, and compliance benefits to doctors, insurance companies, and patients. But half of medical practices that purchase EMR software fail to successfully implement it.

Rapid development is a salient feature of this technology market: eighteen news items published by technology vendors of electronic medical record and billing systems were listed in May 2006 alone on BillingWiki/Technology. The eighteen news items split seven-to-eleven between web-based Application Service Provider (ASP) solutions and Client Server (CS)-based technologies. Upon briefly reviewing key factors defining each technology, we compare them along two criteria, namely implementation success likelihood and costs.

Client Server Architecture

CS model has been around since the early eighties of the twentieth century. Its architecture includes a central server deployed at the doctor’s office and multiple client stations to allow the users to interact with the application. The central server typically runs the database and some of the application logic, while the client stations perform much of the processing locally.

Such distributed processing architecture facilitates relatively high application performance, minimizing waiting time. The downside of CS architecture is that it requires the practice owner to establish necessary infrastructure upfront and to continuously manage it down the road. The infrastructure includes a central server, client terminals, and local network connecting the computers. The management tasks include installation, configuration, backups, restores, and periodic upgrades.

Therefore, a typical CS charge model involves upfront investment in infrastructure and application license and subsequent monthly support costs as well as significant time spent on completing the required tasks and maintaining the knowledge level required for successful operation of hardware and software.

To justify an investment, CS solution vendors offer traditional five-year return on investment (ROI) analysis. Such analysis compares EMR benefits derived from reduced office workload, clerical and clinical errors, improved coding, and faster cash flow, to infrastructure ownership costs.

The pitfall of this approach is that it ignores both technical and financial aspects of technology aging. Technically, Moore's law of digital technology development tells us that chip density doubles every 18 months. Therefore, computer hardware and technology developed on it becomes obsolete every 36 months. Can you justify an investment using five-year horizon in a technology, which might become outdated in three years?

Financially, investments make sense in goods that appreciate in value. Otherwise, renting business-necessary equipment or software often offers the double-pronged advantage of both freeing up cash flow and tax deductible business expense.

Application Service Provider Architecture

ASP model was introduced just before the turn of the new century. It is based on leveraging Internet. ASP architecture places the database server at the vendor’s site instead of the doctor’s office and allocates the majority of application logic to the server, reducing the amount of code needed to run the client. Such an approach allows the users to interact with the application directly via Internet browser, entirely eliminating the need for local office infrastructure and its management. The vendor manages all of the technology centrally and for all offices, including compliance, disaster recovery, installation, upgrades, backups, and restores.

The ability to configure systems and train and support personnel without ever visiting the practice sites, provides one of the most cost-effective EMR solutions. Deployed remotely over the Internet, ASP methodology avoids time-intensive, on-site disruptions. Online training allows physicians and staff to schedule for convenience, further minimizing practice disruption.

Obviously, ASP model creates major economies of scale eliminating the need for local IT staff. Typical charge model of modern Vericle-like solutions consists of monthly access fees and avoids investment in and ownership of associated infrastructure.

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

Top 5 Strategies to Improve OTC Payment Performance With Electronic Medical Billing Software

For many practices, the proportion of over-the-counter (OTC) payments has recently grown from an average of 15% to as high as 75% of total payments. Systematic OTC collections, including measurable process that emphasizes upfront collections, often yield double-digit billing performance improvement. Most importantly, a disciplined and transparent collections process improves provider-patient communications, while early payment collections are also quicker and easier. Better communications and happier patients mean better health and more profitable practice.

OTC payments include copays, fees for non-covered elective services or retail products, and any outstanding balances. Successful collections of OTC payments require measurable collections process, specialized information technology infrastructure, adequate personnel training, and discipline.

OTC payment collection performance and costs greatly depend on elapsed time between service and payment. Collections performance dependence on collections timing stems from the dynamic nature of price-value relation: initially, perception of value received is high in the patient's mind. Similarly, correlation between value and price is also high. However, OTC payment collections grows more difficult in step with fading memory of service benefit.

Systematic measurement of OTC payment quality is critical for its performance improvement. Vericle's OTC payment quality metrics include the percent of accounts receivable beyond 120 days and the time spent on collecting on old account balances. While the national average of the first metric hovers around 18%, some practices have accumulated as much as 50% of their accounts receivable beyond 120 days. The second metric measures the front-office collections efficiency and it too varies widely between few hours per month to double digit hours per week spent by front office personnel chasing unpaid OTC invoices.

According to Vericle experience, the following systematic and measurable payment collections process leverages electronic medical billing software and establishes the discipline required for double-digit billing collections improvement:

 

1. Publish your payment collections policy and standard responses to typical patient's objections.

    

    

2. Clarify patient statement generated by your electronic medical billing software:
   1. Make outstanding balance easily identifiable.
   2. Add specific statement about the time period expected for balance payment (typically upon service or product delivery).
   3. Include phone number to call for patient questions.

    

    

3. Use electronic medical billing software to
   1. Test patient's eligibility and coverage. The results of such a test define patient's copay prior to her arrival to the clinic.
   2. Generate front office alerts about impending patient visit with unpaid OTC balance.

    

    

4. Train clinic physicians to direct patients to front-office staff to review financial statements.

    

    

5. Train your front office to collect OTC payments:
   1. Hold your front office staff accountable by setting up specific and personal collection goals.
   2. Use electronic medical billing software to track individual front staff collections performance.
   3. Establish personal awards for accomplishing collections goals and periodically review personal collections performance.
   4. Train your office staff to receive electronic medical billing software alerts.
   5. Develop a payment collections script and rehearse it with front office staff to improve front-office staff-patient communications.

 

Successful OTC payment collections help patient relationship management and improve practice profitability. They require measurable collections process, specialized information technology infrastructure, and adequate personnel training and discipline.

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.

Medical Billing - Software Capacity

 

The one thing they haven't quite figured out yet in the world of medical billing software is how to make a package big enough in terms of capacity to handle any size company. In this article, we're going to take a look at the problem and just why it's a problem, along with some possible solutions.

Years ago, many years ago, if you had a meg of memory in your computer, you could do just about anything at all. Today, half a gig can just about get your operating system started. As systems and programs get larger, the requirements for these programs grow. But this isn't so much the issue here. Certainly today's PCs have enough memory and disk space to be able to handle starting up an operating system and a piece of software. The issue has more to do with the actual software itself and the mega businesses that use it.

Today, we have corporations involved in the medical billing business that are so massive, it isn't unusual for them to be billing hundreds of thousands of patients. Suddenly, a software package that used to run on a single PC is no longer able to do the job. So networks are built with the software running on individual workstations. The servers running this software are massive. The memory and disk space used by these servers are light years ahead of what they used to be. And yet, with all of this processing power, the software itself can only handle so much. Why?

One of the reasons is the platform on which the software is built. Unfortunately, most software companies build their products on databases that have serious limitations. For example. Some of the most popular DME software packages is built on the database known as Btrieve. While a good database, it has its limitations. One of them is the size it can grow to before you start seeing corruption problems in the database itself. When companies started getting large enough to poke holes in this database, the first solution was to break the database up into multiple companies. But this quickly lead to legal problems and other issues such as being able to get meaningful reports from multiple companies.

Another problem the software packages started running into was the actual processing of the data stored in the database once a solid platform was found. Many users began to notice that running a sales report for a company with 100,000 patients was taking a day to run and tying up all the resources of the server, thus slowing down the work of everyone else. So new network architectures had to be configured to make it so that the reports being run would not have any effect on other users of the system. This was easier said than done with a shared database. So the next solution was to duplicate the database using a RAID system and run the reports off the other drive.

And these problems are only the tip of the iceberg. The unavoidable truth is, as long as companies continue to grow and more and more data is needed, these companies will continue to outgrow the software that is being used. That's why there are constant updates for all these packages.

Michael Russell

Your Independent guide to Medical Billing

Medical Billing Software: An Overview

Components of a successful medical practice. Healthcare professionals from many different specialties can benefit from some level of medical billing software. Innovations in the field of medical billing software have created a new standard of digital precision. Many software packages in general can now fill all the needs of your practice; you can easily locate vendors who know about health care management solutions and will work with your practice to maintain your lead in the business.

When investigating possibilities for your billing software, ask questions such as 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. (“HIPAA” is the acronym for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996.) Then you can ask for the total price (including ongoing costs like software upgrades) of the entire software package. Some vendors will allow you to build your own medical billing software quote by providing you with a series of questions that will identify your essential needs. Moreover, look for companies who offer free updates to ensure continued efficiency and HIPAA compliance.

To figure out your software requirements, you can either assess them for yourself if you have excellent computer and software knowledge, or contact one of the many medical practice software providers who can assist you in comparing features, prices, and services. There are many companies that will do this free of charge.

One popular option that some electronic medical billing software experts will recommend is to use web-based software. These are companies that maintain practice management programs, electronic medical records, and various software programs on remote computers. All of your data is web-based and accessible through the Internet. These companies are commonly referred to as application service providers (ASPs). All you need to use an ASP is an ordinary computer and a broadband Internet connection. Most packages include software support, security, database management and training. This eliminates the burden of maintaining network servers, backup tapes, upgrades or modems. Additionally, search for software providers (web-based or otherwise) who will consistently upgrade their products in a timely manner, anticipate future developments, and translate those advances into system features.

Because dynamic, scalable software is now readily available to the modern medical establishment, even the most humble doctor’s office can install a fluid software system that everybody can use. Further, as the demand for electronic medical billing software has blossomed, so have the available choices. Medical billing software is just one of the many options now available that make operating a medical practice easier than ever before.

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