Create Your Medical Bill Generator for Teams Effortlessly

Medical bill generator for teams

i'm gonna hit that baton it's still loading on my screen but it says it's live streaming so we will find out in one second all right i think we are live happy tuesday hope you guys had a great weekend how's it going ms tanya good how are you doing good today's been a fun day we've been on a lot of exciting calls getting people educated let me make sure we are all set here on our live i'm waiting for it to appear give it a second oh yep we're good heard from the tech we are good we're from the control room sounds like we're we're driving a spaceship all right so um yeah today we had a fun a fun day i don't know if we mentioned did we mention already about our clubhouse shenanigans i don't think so i don't think so so we have been spending a little bit of time in the clubhouse community which has been so fun it's a lot like what we get to do here with you guys on youtube um but i don't know what's the cooler part about it i mean the best part for me anyway it's live and it's real and we get to talk to you guys i actually have a conversation so um so that has been thrilling i like it one for the interaction but to all of the real-time education you know everything that like today just a lot of taking for just oh my goodness if y'all are not on clubhouse and you have access to some apple something get your butts over there yeah yeah i 100 agree with you um i was full disclosure was not an apple iphone user um until i needed yeah until i needed to get on clubhouse so so that was thrilling um and i am that makes two of us i went and bought a a phone specifically for because i i got tired of trying to share my husband's ipad and listen to the things i wanted to listen to when i wanted to so i have a just little small iphone 6 so i can get a clubhouse i mean it's magical i like it okay so the iphone thing i've been i'm i like now that i'm getting used to it full disclosure it's hard it's adjustment takes an adjustment like if you are still on an android and you go iphone just be patient with yourself that is my question and that's why i only use mine for clubhouse i cannot i they're that's the only app on the phone because i cannot figure out how to use it oh my gosh yeah i felt okay i'm gonna tell you guys this story because it just cracked me up so i was uh on on the call with a a really amazing client of ours one of our um largest accounts and you know it was very exciting we're having a great kind of extension or continuation of a conversation we had a day prior and um and i got the call on my cell phone my new phone and we've usually been talking on zoom so i received the call and i'm like okay hello hi how's it going we start talking i picked up the call and put it to my ear and i was like oh it's dead oh he's not there maybe he got disconnected so i called him back and i pick up the phone and like hey how's it going get and he's there and then he's dead and it's dead and i'm like what what is going on that happened four times okay and then and then on the fifth time is when i realized that it was user error um because on on an android my android sometimes the screen didn't blank out properly so i got i got into the habit of clicking the little side button and so every time i was picking up the phone and saying hello he would hear me we would talk for a second but i would click this so that when i put it up to my face i didn't press buttons that was just a habit that i had and i didn't i did not even recognize it it took me four times well really a fifth time because i realized what i was doing and then i'm like did not know that apple that's what hangs up calls so don't do that all right but but something new every day [Music] yeah oh my gosh all right guys well it's tuesday so let me tell you about let's talk let's talk let's finish the conversation about our clubhouse thing so that actually is a phenomenal so clubhouse you guys is is a i like to think of it as like a live podcasting forum like a place to have conversations and there is all types of conversations going on literally 24 7. it's like live it's like you are listening to radio but then you almost like i think about like radio calling in you can call in but you're not sitting on hold per se you're actually getting there and having those conversations live with people about various things um and the rooms range large and small but it's really i like to think of it as like the most social social media that exists right now like it actually connects people around certain topics and so um so we've been blessed to have a community that's been birthed out of that from the podcast um that that renee lumen and i have called um healthcare disrupted and tanya and and renee and i have pulled together to host these clubhouse rooms connected to healthcare disrupted and you know just actionable tools is what we're talking about so depending on where you are in your practice or in business um or an individual i know that you would gain a lot of knowledge from that clubhouse so if you're on clubhouse join us our clubhouse name we'll find one of us first you can find our names on clubhouse um and then it should be as you zip down on our profile at the very bottom icon there you will see the clubhouse healthcare disrupted and it has our schedule listed in our description so right now we are every day 1 pm eastern monday through friday and then we have a whole bunch of other really cool things on the agenda we've got a lot of providers in and um and healthcare leaders that are on that forum so we if you are of that um grain or you are in that space and you have feel like you have something for input to add or you want to join as a listener we absolutely encourage that because there is there is a space for everybody to learn on clubhouse and so you could just join in and listen quietly or if you feel like you've got something you want to throw into the conversation or a question you want to ask us on the on the stage we have some really fun folks that are on our panel as well on various topics so join us join us on there um today we are talking about software so last week and in the weeks past so we've been this is our third live on youtube i think or fourth is it out there do you think so wow i think so um and so and every time we've gotten this question about software or something related to it what do we choose how do we pick that kind of thing so we thought we would kind of run through just what are the criteria that you should be looking for while selecting a software whether you are picking one as a biller for for a practice and you get the opportunity to select the software or if you are looking to select one to offer billing services to practices these are all things that would you should take into consideration now keep in mind depending upon on the um depending upon the um let's see a lot of buffering oh okay oh yes i forgot to mention that clubhouse you gotta have an invite so it is a an invite only platform if you know somebody else has an iphone um and mate and you see them like there might be a way to see on the list just ask your friends with iphones somebody's got to be on there now it's been growing it's the fastest growing platform so sorry i've got a message that's like an offshoot that i should say that i've almost forgot about that so yes it is an invite-only platform if you see it now it is um in your app store it's like a says clubhouse social what does it say a social speaking app or a live speaking app or something like that um and that will get you on their wait list if you download it and put yourself up there what will happen is either someone can see you if they're in their contact they will see you in their wait list and they could pick you up out of there or you can ask your friends and ask them if they're on clubhouse and they can send you an invitation so if they pick you up from their waiting room from the waiting room i should say it doesn't deduct from their invites so people are kind of like funny with their invites these days i've heard some people that are like uh i don't want my name attached to you like as an individual whatever so they may not invite you like they might you know be okay picking you up from the um the waiting room but they may not want to invite you so because you're attached to that person like they're you that person who invited you his name is at the bottom of your profile for well at the moment for the life of of your profile that you know we don't know if that'll change down the line so people are a little coveted in case you you know the person at the bottom of your profile does something wrong or questionable or you do something wrong and then impact that person so i think that everybody's a little bit like you know protective of that space because it's new and we don't know what all the implications might be so and it's listed as a clubhouse drop-in audio chat and it has um about 400 and 30 000 downloads so just look for clubhouse social networking with about 430 000 downloads and you'll know you have the right one i love it i love it all right sorry about that little offshoot there um i was just wanting to talk today what we're just introducing what our subject is today so we were are talking about software because we have a lot of folks in the community that are curious to know what's what are the things that we would recommend you have in your system and to be totally frank you know there really is not a software at the moment that like can check all the boxes a hundred percent from like an ehr billing service software because that you know that all-inclusive all-in-one is is a hard thing to achieve most software companies are looking at it through one lens or the other right so they start down the road they're like we're going to create the best ehr and they work with all these providers and try to create something that is you know very customized very customized to the needs of a provider and then they start down the road of of the um revenue cycle pieces and kind of put all that stuff in there and then they move on like they spend less time on on the rev cycle and then sometimes you've got it on the other side where there's a lot of work on the billing less focus on the hr so it ends up being the weaker component and so it's just one of those things you'll have to take you know some of the good with the bad if you want 85 or 90 percent of a solution to work for you but as long as it's adding the most value to your process that's what you care about so anything about the introduction piece that you want to to add to the mix there dania um for me it's just it's about efficiency really um if you know that's what i look for as a biller which of these emr systems over the next you know few topics that we're going to talk about will provide the most efficiency for not only you as the biller because remember you're going to be handling a large majority of these but also as your practice um and and which one is going to be streamlined so yeah and you really do have companies where they're they're on opposite ends of the spectrum with the ehr and and the rough cycle so what's what's going to be efficient for you what's going to give you as a filler more time back in your day that's what i when we start talking about you know pm systems um and then i just think that research right that's one of the first conversations that we had was you know that research that analytics for that so let's jump into it i'm excited about this topic same here i mean this is probably one that we could go on and on and on about because we all have our wish lists you know like i think after you you're seasoned and you know um you've seen so many systems there's just you get this list of like oh if i only had a developer in my pocket to build a system i know exactly what it needs to look like um and now you know not now i shouldn't say now because it's you know almost nearing a decade of when ehr incentivization started and folks started pushing to having this all-in-one tool we've seen ehr and emr used interchangeably and so people that try to create this all-in-one and look i am all in favor of centralization we've got so many apps there's just like apps for apps and apps and apps for apps like it's like there's just like so much um so many parts to everything that um i love the idea of just going to one place and doing one thing um but just be real that it's it is challenging to get a develop a developing team or a team to see the the need or the value in in working equally on both sides like can can you focus heavy effort in ehr and deliver a phenomenal um system for billing because the reality is yes you need to make sure auditing compliance all this stuff is there present for ehr and then that needs to also echo back into the billing side because now yeah we're pulling over over codes in various pieces but on the billing side this is the thing that is the engine that helps your business run the part's got to be there like it needs to be tight so that you make sure the revenue cycle runs smoothly and you're able to receive the reimbursement for claims so when you have excuse me when you have these um these software companies that kind of what's the best way to say this that kind of pretend as if it's no big deal like billing is is a is a commodity and it doesn't need to have all these extra bells and whistles because it's a very simple process you've never been into billing clearly you have no experience in the world of billing if you're saying that let's be real yes so those are the folks that unfortunately when we start talking down the road of of um like what we want to see as billers they don't it doesn't connect for them they don't see it they don't see it so so today we're going to run through some things and i'll let tanya tanya start us off we'll run through all the things that we recommend and this kind of will overlap a little bit into the ehr um ehr and um uh when i say ehr not really saying ehr i should say i should say this pm so practice management side and um and the billing side because there really are if you think of it like three parts to it you've got the electronic health record right the actual the medical documentation you've got the practice management which really has more to do with like patient management so scheduling um uh routing some cases where you know the software might be able to route patient to different departments in your clinic um registration or intake um things that really aren't directly connected to the billing process but they are uh some of they are the part of the sum is that the right phrase i don't know that's very free there are parts to the hole [Laughter] my mouth is broken we've been talking since very early this morning um so basically there's three parts that most people try to kind of say are one one function really what we're talking about today are the the two ladder so ehr really the only thing we're getting from our ehr if it's integrated which we'll talk about in a minute is is the coding right the code sets um we're not necessarily going to spend a whole lot of time about functionality on ehr because that in itself is an is an animal and you're going to need to make sure that if you're a provider or um you are working for providers you're going to make sure that you talk to them about what they want to see because the world of ehr and customization and folks wanting tools that are going to save them time providers wanting tools that are going to you know make their job a bit more a bit more efficient but also protect them and make sure it's compliant there's there's just so many so many possibilities and and you've we just see them all the time you know the some systems that are far too simple and some that are far too complex so so with that said miss tanya take her away thanks so two words come to mind when we think about practice management and the importance of a good practice management system or pm system automation and intuitiveness we have to have our system think like a biller right so the top three that i think are the most important are going to be your intake your registration functions and your patient gateway interface why because that's where your demographics come that is the main hub for everything so when we're talking about a good pm system we're looking at the patient intake we're looking at the you know the documentation of what's coming in that's going to be the core to any medical practice that you have so a good pm system if it's effectively automated and the patient is uploading their own demographics they're uploading their address they're uploading all of their information one it's less of an opportunity for data entry mistakes on our part which means now there's almost less of a problem on the billing side and then when you start talking about the registration functions of a good pm system what are we capturing are are we sending that out to the patient prior to their appointment are we making sure that all of their forms and yes there's a lot of forms we're talking you know the hipaa the consent form the financial form all these forms that if you're taking the time and having all of that set up on the front end by time the patient get there we're not really worried about if they've been in the waiting room we've all been a patient get a stack of forms and now we're sitting there for 30 minutes so that automation piece makes for a good practice management system and then the patient gateway what exactly can the patient access in this information can they get a hold of their own medical records and they don't have to call you or call someone else if they have a question it's right there for them front and center they have a username they have a password they can go into the system they can see what codes were billed how much was charged if their insurance paid for it or not and it takes some of that day-to-day manual process off of our shoulders as a biller because now we're streamlined and we have that effective efficiency as we said before that gives us leeway to focus on other things and other parts of our day that may take a little bit more time than sitting there and trying to flip through 15 pieces of paper or scan in 15 pieces of paper to make sure that this information is correct jasmine what do you say do you feel the same i do i do i think um from that i just want to expand a little bit on the intake um or really that registration or pre-registration because there's still a lot as you said a lot of practices that are primarily using paper and there are a lot of tools even if your software at this time doesn't use a and an intake that is um is an electronic intake or something that can be done while the patient before the patient even comes in while the patient's at home there are tools that can interface and support that process for you so and tanya i would 100 agree with you that this the this concept of registration being one of the top ones to look for like ease of that process the reason for that is that is the number one cause of denials right data capture just basic information now we also add in the mix insurance information and stuff that maybe you won't have the patient put in that will automatically show up in your system in those cr in those areas however most of the data that comes in from that patient it comes from that patient you could potentially get it without rushing around so let's say if you had the patient if you have a software the patient's doing their intake from home and the quiet or or you know from from their office or whatever they've they have more time they're not feeling rushed um your staff's not feeling rushed they don't mess up the scan copy of the card or skip that step by mistake or you know those kind of things or miskey something um potentially they're just verifying what they see on the card when they have it in hand that just streamlines it 100 so i mean i absolutely would support and not to say that you you have to have a a full fully automated but if you can do things like send a patient the documents beforehand let's say you do not have the ability to make a switch to a software or an integrated tool that supports this intake at least be doing fillable forms i mean like why would you send me like that drives me crazy when someone sends me a pdf and it's not fillable i'm like i don't i don't even know what to do with this like what am i and i what i do is i go to my adobe and i make that sucker fillable because i'm not about to sit here and print your form and handwrite all my stuff in there especially because we almost i'm not going to say all of us but many of us i believe have software that are set on our system our computers that can remember things that will automatically say oh you we know your address here's the this is an address field put the address in you know your name those things that you're using frequently on your own computer your own device will automatically fill if you allow it to on your soft on your computer so so yeah i just i feel like if you aren't thinking of creative ways to streamline that and you're still doing everything 100 um start with that disclaimer start with that exactly i don't print them and i never thought about doing the adobe and i pay for the subscription so girl girl there you go take some notes how about how about there is um there are ways that lazy people can be lazy i'm not gonna call lazy i shouldn't say that like i i i just i you know i'm always trying to save time right time is our greatest yeah it's our greatest asset so whatever we can do to save a little bit of extra time and um and utilize you know the gifts of technology we've got so much gifts and i'm a total nerd i'll blame that on my father who's in i.t and has been for a long time but i'm a total nerd so i like new apps and new gadgets and try to figure out the way to get the best use out of it you know so um so yeah so thinking about intake and so if you are a biller looking for a biller software like it is helpful for you to know if your clients are using these tools because again it goes back to what supports your process so you absolutely are going to want to help them to utilize a tool like we're talking about either something that interfaces or a software that already has this function figured out because there are some software out there that patients are brand new to the office you schedule them it fires off all you do is schedule put whatever initial criteria in and it fires off an invitation to the patients to fill out the rest of their intake yeah that is spectacular spectacular so all right so uh what what's next midair so payment go so we said patient gateways in that um piece like for intake even payment gateways and interactive so like if a patient comes in um to the office and they have a co-pay and this was gaining in popularity when kiosk kiosks popped up in waiting rooms where patients could walk up and kind of do some intake or pay their co-pays instead of going to a person it's kind of like varying results whatever because it's kind of like an atm machine in the middle of the waiting room not everybody loves that um but but for sure there are a lot of tablets and useful tools that can allow the patients to go ahead and pay if a payment gateway is properly interfaced or interact like set up in your system some of those those gateways will even allow the patient to store their credit card securely now the patient's the one who initiates the storing you really can't you're not supposed to have the ability in most cases to touch any of that data the patient has to be the one to store it and and request you to um to save that on their record for you for utilization for you know they can drive it for standard co-pays and things um so so yeah so that's that's one benefit to to looking at a system that has a little bit more use of um later technologies more recent technology and that one's new for me i actually just had that happen where i could log into a patient gateway portal and see upcoming appointments and just click and pay copay and i'm like oh wow this is great i don't have to stand there in the office and wait so right i don't know when that came up or when that started happening i love it yeah and there's so many systems that don't that can't even touch the surface of that like it's just not it's not possible you're all you're still exchanging but this the software companies that have been listening to the cry so to speak of the because i mean it's it bottlenecks everything right no one wants to get to the front desk and have to wait for the person who's getting you know uh set up for their next appointment or that you know depending on what your patient flow is you've got patients that are just getting there that are signing in then you might have someone who's bringing up a copy of their card and the other person is bringing back their registration forms because they're new patients so you've got all these people going one direction and you know you have a copay that you just need to pay they already know you're there you want to pay it you're waiting in line so it doesn't make sense yeah so i absolutely love the idea of leveraging technology that is oh so common in every other industry credit cards on file it's like it is they're they're done they're everywhere like every company wants your credit card information to have you subscribing to their service to stay in their books so that they can automatically bill you for something and not to say that you would necessarily turn on the plug for the for the provider to automatically bill you but if you can have it in there and then just get a text that says do you approve this transaction for 20 bucks or what you know for whatever your copay is i mean how much easier would that be you know you're not having to go in grab your card type it all into the antiquated system that is the old school payment gateway systems that a lot of these providers use or software use so all right i digress let's move on so on that note after a patient has been scheduled at your office let's say you um either put their information in for their their insurance information or you've allowed the patient to do it there are so many tools out there that allow for that real-time automatic eligibility check so an instant notification that tells you something is not right big alarm red dot big x whatever needs to happen there's some communication tool on the schedule that's phenomenal that is such yeah and getting that not just for you but also for the front desk because nobody at the no one at the front desk wants to have that conversation with miss jones or whoever you know miss doe and say oh i'm sorry your your insurance you know is not valid anymore or tell me what if they get an opportunity to reach out to the patient beforehand before they're in front of them and trying to explain because then you've got to say oh what what information do you have on file i've got this and this is well that's not right well let me give you all this back and forth that again is happening while all that bottleneck that we mentioned earlier is also happening so so you've got patience discrepancies even easier is that the end of the year you know whatever your your insurance year is you know that part of it when you can go through and make sure everybody's information for the upcoming year is is correct without having to to log in or make phone calls you know you get that big x hey something's wrong like you said you you don't have to again we go back to efficiency at the end of the day do you want to sit on the phone and have and it's ms doe that something's wrong where you could have automatically clicked the button saw the big red x and gone about your business because the end of the year is already gonna be busy you know for lack of a better word so yeah i love it yeah and i see some people on here i want to remind you guys that this is a lot we are on here live this is it's seven o'clock eastern right now six o'clock central at the same time so please add in the chat and add some add some comments or questions we want to be able to answer questions for you guys we are talking about the importance of picking an a really great billing system or a good of really the ways to know that you've picked a good system for your practice or your billing service if that's something that you are um are exploring and if you have the opportunity to pick a system out of out of the bunch what are the things that you should be looking for so we are just about a quarter of the way through the the revenue cycle we're taking it down the path of the revenue cycle um so as as tanya was just mentioning that batch it's what we call batch eligibility checking right that batch eligibility check checking service is a service usually of a clearinghouse that's integrated which we'll talk a little bit further about later but a service that's integrated with a practice management system or the um or the billing system so it's it is vital that you pick a software that has the functionality now you know you may have a varying way that you like to work it like we've we've heard from some providers that prefer to do things on a weekly basis they'll look at their future schedule and say all patients over the next seven days you know are they currently verified is there something um eligible is there something wrong with coverage i strongly recommend that you're looking at patients for the next at least the next business day um because we have a lot of carriers out there that are renewing even monthly so like if you're looking at like a medicaid product or something where folks have to provide updated information there's a chance that you go seven days out everything's good today but at the end of this month it's turned off so um so i just would recommend that you you know are thinking outside of the box and keeping it taking into consideration your specialty as well um so absolutely finding a rhythm that works best for your staff but using the tools that are available to you yeah so and one last thing that i'll add in and then i'll let ms tanya take over is the ability for for you to attach items for scanning so we mentioned already a couple of times that like patients have um they can sometimes use this portal in a very interactive way so there are some really cool portals out there patients get their intake they can fill it out for you and then they can take a picture of their insurance card whoa that's so cool right not why not like we're taking pictures of our credit cards so that they can put automatically into you know into these fields i don't know if you guys have experience with that where you go to buy something um online and all you do is snap the your card and it pulls all the numbers in right um so why why not why not have the ability to do the same thing with an insurance card now it's not like perfected per se if the picture sometimes is just a picture it's not pulling the the um the uh numbers over the ids mostly because there's not really any real standardization with the exception of of um like federal plans right there's no other standardization across the um the carrier cards but if a patient has the if you have the ability to attach a patient's card to their account it makes it it saves the front desk from having to do it potentially right you might still want to see it but you don't necessarily need to pause and scan it and in addition to that it makes it so much easier for the billing team right whoever's going to actually go either verify that data or have to go back and correct something because insurance didn't process it correctly or didn't accept the claim for processing they have the card right there at their fingertips so if you're not scanning cards right now i don't know what to say i don't know what to say the words escape me you need to be scanning cards there or somebody needs to be scanning cards or you need to be having your patients do what we just talked about there needs to be there has you need to have a copy of that patient's insurance card you need to help crime every visit well no so there are some exceptions i'll say when i say every visit like we for some of the therapy clinics like any of the rehab facilities where the patients are going like two or three times a week we do make suggestions that you have a reasonable schedule because if the patient was just there yesterday or the day before yesterday you won't run out of paper like your skin and everybody's cards are like trying to figure out how to get your scan your scanner gonna be broken by the end of this quarter so um but i would say that um a double check especially like we talked about earlier like things like medicaid um having a software that at least verifies it even if the patient came in three times is gonna save you yeah and you know you can absolutely ask for a new copy or ask them if something changed if you had that big x you can do that before they're in front of you which is nice so yeah and then going into that how you're saying before they're in front of you we have text reminders i would say probably what 90 plus percent of the the population has some type of phone that does text messages or even email reminders but it's always a good thing to have a practice management system that can um send out a reminder so that you're not calling the patients or you know we get busy especially if there's a appointment that that was booked last year you know when we we talk about well child exams or well women exams or whatever you know usually those are six months to a year out including dental claims so you know sometimes you forget to put it on your calendar you know there's times where you get that text reminder and it's for tomorrow and you're like oh crap i totally forgot about it um and it saves you time on any type of a fee because a lot of you know providers have some type of fee that they charge for no show or late shows so text reminders it you know another big one that i advocate for to make sure that the private you know the the patients know when and where they're supposed to be and at what time you know so always need to have at least that on your system and i mean people that are on billing companies or or servicing billing providers don't don't discount the the value that this has for you i mean for patient for retention of visits for you know showed versus missed like being able to make sure that these practices are still are consistently retaining patient visits and those patients are coming in when they're scheduled or um for their appointments so um there's showed versus versus seen is is one of the main stats that we recommend for for providers because you know there's lots of of scheduled appointments and then you've got a you know a certain number of of um of no-shows a certain percentage of no-shows that that come into play so things like text reminders helps to reduce that or say increase that rate of um of of of showed visits so so yeah keep that in mind and make sure that you don't discount the need for a for a text reminding system and then one of the things that i'll just kind of insert this into this section there's a lot of and i i will have a separate conversation about the tool that i love that that we started utilizing um that has it is a separate functioning tool that has this kind of ability to support um any system that doesn't have the the um patient portal function per se but it allows for like a two-way communication so there you there are a lot of systems that have this like if you're using a tool that is text reminder and the text reminder tool has the um the uh two-way texting where the patients you can send them a text to remind them and they can respond back um to that message to not just reschedule but to also let's say ask a question yeah to confirm to you know that kind of thing but if they there are tools out there and one that we're using at this time that allows the patients to also ask questions if you send a statement for example you can basically have them utilize this kind of own its own little patient portal type function without it having to be a patient portal from within your software supports the patient's accounts that allows the patient to ask a question about a reason for a bill or a balance or things like that where you have a two-way conversation and it's stored attached to that patient's portal so um so yeah i mean using things like the text reminders and patient portal functions are super valuable so 100 recommend that i i have not heard of that so yeah we'll share i actually got i i did not want to like spoil or alert it but i got the package like they send a welcome packet to all of our providers um i i own a billing company and those of you who are not aware and um and our providers receive tanya does as well um let's just put that out there just in case you guys are curious we're not just talking about we have we have a lot of experience in this field if you have not plugged into our our content before um but basically the um the welcome packet that they sent to our providers we got so i was gonna do an unboxings per se video to go over it and talk a little bit about the things that are exciting um for us and like the successes we wanted to make sure that it worked out for us first so i've been using it for a while we're like okay we're gonna wait to make sure that like it actually does what what they sold us on and it does so super excited to share that so stay tuned for that video the unboxing of our our patient um we'll call it it's not like just patient building it is like i kind of i really think that it really amplifies the patient experience when it comes to the financial side like because there's so many systems out there that exist that are like very antiquated and then people sending these statements that are just don't give a lot of information and in addition to that they put like nine to three local or like some random time zone or whatever like that doesn't even and they're working you're you know you're working all day you get a bill in the mail and then you know you leave a voicemail for this billing company because you have a question no one calls you back like at least you get an opportunity to connect and it's a 24 7 communication function that allows you to do that and you can pay online and so there's just technology has a way of not just making the billers lives easier and the administrators but it absolutely on the patient the patient side it improves that patient experience so i'm excited now because i understand patient statements with wrong numbers with all of that so i am i am like so excited and i do think that that fits in with the conversation that we're having because you are now integrating that into pm systems that is now going to streamline a lot of these topics that we're talking about so that's that's great let me know when you do that video because i definitely want to watch i am excited and i need more information from my comments all right let's do it i'm gonna i'll make sure i get it done and then maybe we'll uh we'll do a little recap like what what could we do with this tool like how how could this still help us even more you know um so yeah so we mentioned already ehr integrations earlier in the conversation um that is a really important next piece um as a biller there are um there are a lot of software still that function independently where you have systems that basically do not have a streamlined or a integrated integration at all to an ehr tool or they're not willing to integrate with outside tools and that's a problem for you you're going to end up with the potential for data processing errors where someone is you know entering in patient either demographics or um diagnosis and procedure codes and there's a potential for error versus having a software that's connected and as we talked about something that's a bit more audit proof right where you have the ability to protect the data with with the integration support knowing that the providers you know verified signed off on their notes and there if there is not a coder inserted in the process somewhere you're taking directly from that provider data the charges and the diagnosis codes and modifiers and such to be able to support and create your claim so it's really really important that you look for a tool that helps to eliminate the need for manual entry i mean we just completely stopped this past year this was just in 20 it was either yeah i think it was 20 20. just in 2020 eliminated all of the clients that and we didn't have a lot thankfully um the clients that we were still doing manual data processing for um and not because we wanted to penalize them it's just we had nudged for so so so long that this is not the way that you want to run your revenue cycle and you know unfortunately there are two there's just too many folks that are willing to allow the same kind of bad habits to take root for decades and you know continue to to plague the revenue cycle and so you know we we have to allow for the relationship to operate in the in the best way possible right we want to be able to do that our best to support the revenue cycle but when we know that in truth that you've got a process that's so antiquated and there's so much room for error it causes us to not be able to deliver the best quality of services billers right so we have to always take that into consideration the impact right the implications of a broken process so you have to tell them straight up look like i'm happy to help you for this amount of time but let's work together and get a better solution and then you know fortunately folks some folks will say yes and some folks will say no thank you and they'll find another company that wants to do to support them with all of the manual you know data entry so um and that's okay just know that it's going to cost you more money if you're running a billing company it costs you way more money to have somebody doing the manual um entries and not to mention that's there's just what potential for error you know you've got to make sure your arizona emissions are are your insurances is uh is is high we'll say that because there's a chance that you know your staff makes a mix makes some sort of issue or error with your with your um charge posting and now claims get improperly paid or billed um i've heard that before like you know there's especially if you're billing in the world of like auto accident cases or workers comp right if you're thinking about these other liability where they pay 100 in some cases of the claim somebody accidentally puts an extra zero somewhere and you bill 50 000 for like an e m code and the billing the um the insurance company pays that one line 50 000 for a basic um exam right that's possible and insane but possible for for these workers compensation and um and auto carriers to pay and so you know if that's slipping through the cracks there's a chance that it just would continue to plague your organization in other areas too so anyway i digress so ehr connections integrations in some way possible yeah the the the other thing too that really needs to be integrated is clearing houses and i do think there's a lot of them that do a lot of different things so you have some that do some of these functions that we've talked about that have the eligibility they have um real time um clean status denial um status claim statuses yeah so thank you my brain is cried today let me tell you we've been talking for [Laughter] um but your clearinghouse integration is definitely one of those things that you want to make sure that your practice management system has because while we talk about revenue cycle if you submit a claim today you should have some type of um ansi 835 or the 277 999 files which we can a lot of numbers you just throughout all that all that lang lingo [Music] all right we're gonna have to do a recording video on all that uh gang talk that she just threw out there that's my best exactly you have to be bilingual in our language but um these these types of files that i mentioned these are all going to be the files that is going to help you know was your claim accepted was your claim rejected is it going to be paid is it going to be denied and what is the errors that's on there so if you some type of clearinghouse integration inside of your practice management portal your ar goes from possibly being 90 plus 100 plus 200 plus days to being something that you can manage in real time right now get it fixed get it back out the door but you know it's wrong there are some providers like we just talked about that you know they like to do things very antiquated and antiquated means now you're dropping claims on paper and you're sending them and you're waiting 30 days to find out something was wrong and it just takes more time it's not efficient it's not effective so a clearinghouse integration is probably one of the best things to to keep your revenue cycle clean i would say right and there are still there's a lot of systems out there in the industry that don't have what we would call consider like a proper functioning integration where it does it really doesn't give you a status or any sort of real useful data in the patient's account so again we're talking today we're talking about you you get to pick your favorite software you're picking the software that is has a an integrated system like when we say integrated it gives you you hit the button to submit the claim they tell you claim was accepted in your software not in a separate clearinghouse function there are a lot of systems that have the software has the ability to extract like tanya said either paper claims or an electronic claims file an ansi file which we'll talk about later well it has that file and that file goes to your and uploaded in some way to the portal of a clearinghouse that's not an integration that is a separation you are downloading and you are uploading that is not an integration so we're talking about an ideal circumstance is integration because as tanya was explaining the status of the claim is going to exist in that separated system in your clearing house we will we don't want that we want to have that updated in ms doe's account it's going to say mr's claim was accepted on this day it was paid on this day to give you some history of the claim a life of the claim you want to be able to view the life of the claim underneath the patient's account instead of having a separation full transparency if you run a billing service and you're using planning to use client software and you're using other systems you're going to possibly have a little bit of separation and it's okay look i mean i don't know for sure if tanya has any any providers that have this but you know we certainly have client base that we're pulling patient data pulling excuse me claims data out to upload into a clearinghouse and a lot of that has to do with the fact that the software company hasn't built in the integration to fully be operational to support the rev cycle so it's possible but if you again are you are picking your ideal software today your ideal software is going to have a fully integrated clearinghouse tool all right and i do have providers where we can integrate they don't want to pay for it so that would be another thing that you're you know your perfect pm for all of these things that we're talking about but it's worth it yeah i've heard that too definitely um think about this if there's a minimal value like i mean excuse me minimal cost but maximum value as you being the the contractor or the billing service let's say that integration i you know i don't have any sort of basis for the price but let's say it's a hundred bucks a month to have that integration like i would almost advocate for as a billing service you incentivizing the provider i will deduct a hundred dollars from my bill if you add this you know for x amount of months to show the value of it you know whatever it i just think it's sometimes you ha you have to be willing to to bend a little bit so that you can get them to see the value because unfortunately you know it's just sometimes the proof is in the pudding you know we we we get resistance from all kinds of stuff we're talking about the um the vendor earlier um that we're using for the um the patient statements functions and also clients that they don't see the value they're like but why but why like okay let me prove to you give me this number of weeks or this number of months to be able to get the best value out of this system and then you will understand why why um and people you know some people need to see proof in their own experience first so being flexible to try to get you know providers to um to commit to that kind of use of of um of technology so um so yeah so i am gonna take this this next step at um the topic of data processing so we were talking about data processing on the front end which is basic data entry demographics the middle section where we've got the payment posting and um when i say payments i mean from the insurance carrier your claim is paid it's coming in you've got payment posting and denial capture there are some software functions out there that are don't think like a biller like tan you mentioned at the beginning we want an intuitive system that can make the process a bit more streamlined we don't want automatic write-offs for things that we as billers need to have the opportunity to fight so there are a lot of software developers out there that build these systems that they think are oh so great because it eliminates the biller from having to do this or do that or whatever like truth be told we need to know when a contractual obligation code comes through even if it's anything but a couple of items and we'll talk about this in a totally separate but if it's not a co45 which is a basic contract obligation and it's or a co 137 which is one that's for medicare reductions i think that's 137 for medicare reductions uh we need to or medical medicare the sequestration yeah that those are the ones i think it's 137 so such a nerd um those are the ones that we're like okay we know that that's coming everything else outside of that that comes through the denial we need to have some intelligent billing eyes on it to ensure that the denial is captured properly and available to be worked so let's say this it doesn't need to be meaning they capture all of them and you have to have eyes on all of them but you want to pick a software that perhaps let you lets you customize ing to the type of denial that says okay it's a co like i said let's just say 187 or i think it's 187 is the sequestration i think you're right yeah so um i don't remember the 137 it's something it's something similar i believe but basically you have the these denials that you can say i need to know that this denial was present because i want this held off and it should be available for work there should be some sort of way to customize it and then there might be some based on your specialty your region that are expected or anticipated denials we know that it's going to be denied because of the type of software company for example in um in the chiropractic world there is and i'm just thinking this like there's contracts sometimes that exists in these states that are where the the the carrier allows for a per diem which means per day rate you get paid x amount of dollars per day chiropractors and physical therapists that you know are working under a chiropractor they generally will build somewhere between four and six whatever modalities um in addition to whatever other spinal manipulations or exams that they perform in a day and if they have you know somewhere between those four to six procedure codes or line items on a claim yet they are only allowed x amount per day there's going to be a lot of write-offs on that denial that comes in and so there should be the ability for you to say okay i know that per day my provider has a contract that says he's only allowed to receive x amount of dollars so on this claim where i've gotten six line items that five of which look like they were denied that was anticipated i know that that's accurate so you should be able to customize some of that information so keep that in mind and not again it should it may not be down to a t but just make sure the software doesn't automatically write off stuff where now you have to pay someone or you yourself are going through and removing those write-offs so that you can work on them that is just counterproductive yeah and then you have your interactive aging i think this is my favorite part of the the practice management system you can actually go in run your aging run your data and work your work your claims but the interactive aging shows you in real time where you're claimed like you know practices are are there accrual basis every day your claim is going to age every day you're going to have that claim move the bucket but in your pm system it also gives you a way to track all of your notes and to to download or you know i work off of excel sheets i i like the interactive aging because i can go in the system and i can you know look at everything but i also like to be able to see it in an excel sheet and then go back and put my notes into my aging um reports and you have you know that area where you can can say on this day and it gives you a what's the word um not a flow chart but it it gives you a way to see everything that you've documented on that claim who you've talked to in real time i'm trying to think if someone asks you know for that information so like i don't know we i think in our summer systems call them like an audit trail an audit report but it gives you some feedback on it yeah yeah um by the way let me just like just because i see some of our folks are out here you guys if you've got questions or comments we're here live 7 30 p.m eastern right now drop some drop us a note in the chat we want to hear from you let us know what you're thinking about if there's something that we talked about or we didn't talk about that you want to um to make mention of add it in the chat we want to hear it so just wanted to offshoot that sorry to interrupt continue no you're good um and then i was going to say like um a good practice management system also has where you can put in documentation and notes um i like the ones where you can put it in and it gives you the date and the time that you've put the information in the system and you cannot take it out so there's you know no way that someone can come in and say oh that wasn't there yes yes it's here this is when i put it in this is but you get to keep track in a streamlined system everything that you've done everything that you've worked you have your notes right there in front of you you don't have to go finding a piece of paper or a sticky note or you know so a good a good practice management system will give you that area that you can you you have it and i like where you can do it either in the aging or in the in the patient's chart but it all connects and it all talks to each other so when you're working on specific you know either patients or a patient calls you don't have to go searching it's all right there and available yeah when i want to say something and this is we could probably have a call of like what are the worst things that you've ever seen like it's just like all the terrible things you've ever seen in the software um we we were we've worked on software that have these really biz and this again goes back to developers not ever talking to folks that are in the revenue cycle or the billing world to understand how something needs to function just like tanya said like having an account that that shows notes in reflective in certain parts of the system where it benefits folks right so for example if i'm in a patient's account and um i'm just modifying the patient's schedule let's say i'm just changing something patient needs to reschedule their appointment but there's a note from the biller that says their insurance card has expired or something like that i should be able to see that note if it's prioritized in a way that shows me and it could be something that says like an alert or something that shows up as a as a priority note that shows up on internal screens that are really reflective of the administrative staff because the provider does not need to see that like there are sometimes some software that have these alerts that show up on everybody's screen like the providers are seeing it the phlebotomists are seeing it like the lab department where everybody's seeing it in the office yeah nobody else needs to see that besides the administrative staff and mps or nurses in the back office so you know there's there's just like the re the recognition that you have to be thinking about who really needs to have eyes on this and who's going to benefit potentially there might be different prioritizing where you need everybody to know it there's an allergy there's some sort of concern the patient can't hear the patient you know whatever there's there's all kinds of um of things that might be relevant for everybody in the office right as an alert but we have some software that we've experienced where they have um like eight different places for notes and none of them talk to each other you're like it's like what you got a claim level note you've got a front desk level note or a receptionist level note and it's like and everybody's trying to figure out where to put where's the best place to put the note like like well we see this well what do you guys see well we only see this area well so who how does the front desk know what's happening with billing if they can't see that note so you know make sure that the software has um figured out the documentation and the importance and all really the administrative side so and somewhere where the note cannot be erased yes when you put your notes in you want to be able to go back and see your note totally and we you know we can have conversations about the the value of documentation when it comes to to the revenue cycle and as billers right it's not it's not we're not talking necessarily only proof for for the work that you've done for your client but this is also just a trail for you you know when you go in there patient jane doe calls in and she says you know i've got this this bill in the mail whatever and and you know it's it's got this listing and whatnot and maybe that was an issue you just recognized and you called the insurance company or one of your billers did a couple of days earlier to get that resolved like how much time would it save if you didn't do that all over again jane doe called yet your staff members already taken care of it you can say oh i see here they've already called on the claim i mean it's just basic history i don't when that drives me crazy when you call one of those customer service lines you're like i just spoke with this person do you not keep notes in your system like do you i have a reference number and i have a name what do i have that for if you can't put that up and see the notes and so that's the value of us doing the same thing is us making a little bit of a trail for ourselves of breadcrumbs to give us a little uh about what happened yeah some sort of insight into what is going on with this account so we don't we aren't all with fresh eyes trying to figure it out yep all right let me see what else oh so okay we talked briefly about the statement functionality okay so software companies usually a lot of them will just say this usually don't think so far into being able to shift or change the statement in a custom way um in a way that is supportive of like unique things to your practice so we've seen a lot of integrations or things pop up where people are using statement clearinghouses to customers because the software just doesn't allow you to do it doesn't allow you to change anything and like tanya was saying some people don't even know how to change their phone number like if they switch billing companies we've seen that too with other clients where they've switched billing companies like three years ago same phone number is on the bill if you've got billion questions or whatever like years prior so it's really important that you at least know what your software can do in the way of customizing a statement and if it can't if it's just not possible if you you can't you haven't found a system that can do some things in that way then make sure you have a clearinghouse that you're using um and again back to integrations that ideally is