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A New Online Learning Tool On How to Automate Patient Care Plans for Physical Therapy Practice Owners

Care Plan Automation Solution Is Now Available with BestPT Billing and EHR Software

automated care plans for physical therapistsCLEARWATER, FLORIDA (PRWEB) NOVEMBER 24, 2015

BestPT Billing and EHR Software helps their clients manage patient care plans. Their Care Plan management tool ensures that patients understand their financial commitments prior to accepting care, while practice owners standardize billing and comply with payer’s copay and coinsurance requirements.

According to Dr. Eldad De-Medonsa, bestPTs’ President and PhD in Artificial Intelligence, the effects of using automated care plans for care planning and monitoring help improve outcomes and maintain financial health of the practice. “Care plans are important because patients will not commit to care if they cannot easily understand their financial commitment. As importantly, practice owners have to stay compliant by charging, adjusting, and writing off the correct amounts. We leverage the cloud, billing experts, and Artificial Intelligence to help design the most effective practice management software,” says De-Medonsa.

Click here to view the webinar and to learn more.

About BestPT and Billing Dynamix, LLC

BestPT by Billing Dynamix is a comprehensive cloud-based Physical Therapy Practice Management system that includes intuitive EMR, industry-leading billing, scheduling, and powerful yet simple workflow management. Save documentation time and keep legible and compliant documents. Automate claims and leverage over 2.5 million coding rules spanning 2,500 practice-years of experience. Reduce administrative overhead and foster staff teamwork. BestPT is the ONLY Physical Therapy clinic solution that reduces administrative time by 70% compared to industry averages – GUARANTEED. Complete practice management consulting and a rich array of integrated products and services round out bestPT product and service packages. Register for a private Demo+, and review our industry-leading guarantee at https://bestptbilling.com/

 

 

Thinking On the Run

Thinking On the RunPhysical Therapy Software

by Erez Lirov

Stretching expectations to find an ideal solution

Can Shannon find a credit card processing system that will meet her definition of excellence?

Mike and Shannon rounded the bend of the track through the park. The weather had kept them from running for a couple of weeks, and Shannon was enjoying the feeling of getting out in the fresh air and moving through the beautiful scenery.

“Isn’t this great?” Mike asked, puffing a bit. “I love getting into the moment and not thinking for a while.”

“How can you do that?” Shannon asked, slowing to a walk. “I think even more when I’m running. In fact, that’s one of the benefits. I can think more deeply as I run.”

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“What’s on your mind?” Mike asked, slowing to match her pace.

“Credit card processing,” Shannon answered quickly. “I know I need to do some research to find the best system for the center, so I’ve been organizing my thoughts. Can I try it out on you?”

“Sure.” Mike plopped down on a bench that gave a view of the park.

“Stretch out first!” Shannon urged him. “Cool down!”

Mike stretched out flat on the bench with his arms and legs hanging down. “This is the only kind of stretching I plan to do. Now tell me your credit card processing ideas.”

“Okay,” Shannon agreed, pulling her nose to one knee. Her hair fell down to the ground, but Mike could still hear her as she continued, “I figure the least a system would have to do for it to be worth the trouble of changing would be to help us catch errors.” She drew her nose to her other knee. “If it would post the payments automatically to the patient accounts, charge the accounts back if the payment got declined, and send us a report at the end of the day, that would make it worthwhile. I figure it takes a full day over the course of a month for us to take care of those things, and I don’t see why a computer couldn’t do it.”

Mike nodded. “It sounds like that would help quite a bit.”

“Right, and it should also let us charge products to the patient accounts. That seems completely realistic.” Shannon pulled her arms behind her, stretching out her chest. “Next level up, if it would notice when recurring payment information we keep on file is about to expire, and maybe alert patients about expirations and if a payment is declined so they can take care of it. It would have to alert us, too. And it could alert us when someone is getting behind, too. That would not only prevent a lot of the errors we face, but it would also improve customer service.”

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Mike sat up and swiveled to look over the park. “Okay, That’s the fair-to-middling solution. What does it take to reach excellence?”

“If the payment system would send out invoices automatically and let us accept payments electronically, we’d shorten the billing cycle and save a lot of time.”

“People prefer to pay bills electronically, anyway,” Mike pointed out. “Most of us are used to paying our bills that way by now.”

Shannon pulled Mike up from the bench and they headed back toward their car.

“So this paragon of a payment system,” Mike asked, “what’s it going to cost?”

“That’s part two,” Shannon laughed. “If I can find a system that meets my definition of excellence, then I’ll just have to see whether I can afford it. But I think that a system like that could result in some real savings just because of the efficiency, so it’s worth spending some time in research.”

Can Shannon find a credit card processing system that will meet her definition of excellence?

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Boxed In?

Boxed In?

by Erez Lirov

Breaking things down helps indentify needs, avenue to expore

Will Shannon’s lack of knowledge keep her trapped in credit card inefficiency? How can she find the change she needs?

“Why Shannon, you look radiant!” Theresa said as Shannon stepped into the office. Theresa was cutting down cardboard boxes. “Taking a little break with your husband really perks you up!”

“I think that this time it’s adrenaline,” Shannon said. “I’m feeling very motivated to fix the issues with our credit cards.”

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“Issues?” Theresa cocked an eyebrow. “Like high fees, errors, and the time we spend on this stuff?”

“Exactly. I know you said we should shop around for a better rate, and Mike had some ideas, but do we have to have special HIPAA-compliant processing?”

“The compliance standard for credit card processing is called ‘PCI.’ I know we’re responsible for it and that the rules change sometimes, but I don’t know how we make sure we’re up to date on that. I have heard that penalties for noncompliance are high, though — you remember when Target had a security breach? They paid more than a billion dollars in fines.” Theresa shook her head and stacked the flattened boxes. “It’s no different for health care. Besides, look at all these boxes! This is from merchandise we sell. We’re making good money from that retail area. We should get a POS — a point-of-sale system — so we can check people out easily.”

“Hold on,” Shannon objected. “I’m trying to make things simpler here.”

“It could be like the practice management software. That seemed complicated when we were just thinking about doing it, but it has actually simplified our lives a lot — and saved us money.”

“That’s true. There might be an integrated system for credit cards.”

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Theresa agreed. “If we were able to reduce errors, we’d probably save enough to pay for it. I heard that something like 8 percent of recurring payments get declined, and I’m not sure we catch all those.”

“I’m completely convinced that errors and efficiency are enough of a reason to make changes, but do you think we can do anything about the size of the credit card processing fees?”

Theresa thought, her eyes on the pile of cardboard at her feet. “I still think it would make sense to shop around, but I know that the fees are based at least in part on how much volume we have. Maybe making the process easier would encourage people to use their credit cards more.”

“If it’s about volume, though…” Shannon shook her head. “We’re never going to have the kind of volume Target has. Or even Mike’s rest

aurant. A lot of people pay by check and of course insurance is a big part of our income, too.”

“Maybe we could get group rates, like with insurance,” Theresa suggested.

Shannon laughed. “I think we need to do some research. At least now we know what we don’t know! Come on, I’ll help you get all this out to the recycling bin.”

Will Shannon’s lack of knowledge keep her trapped in credit card inefficiency? How can she find the change she needs?

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ICD-10 | Five Building Blocks | bestPT Webinar | Q&A

PQRS Q&A

As you get your practice ready for the ICD-10 changeover, you are bound to have questions regarding documentation and compliance. To help you get the answers you need, we have compiled all questions that were asked during our recent webinar “ICD-10 | Five Building Blocks,” along with the presenter’s responses. Feel free to add any new questions in the comment section below.

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Q: Where can I find CMS guidelines in written form?

A: On CMS.gov, click on the Medicare link and you will find a link for both local and national coverage determinations.

Q: When can I start finding ICD-10 codes within your software and submitting them?

A: Our software already has all the ICD-10 codes listed; we are building the crosswalk now. We recently completed ICD-10 testing with Medicare, and were successful with our front-end edits. We are looking to have this available to practices by June, to really start testing and crosswalking. At this point, payers are not accepting claims in ICD-10; they are not coming over until October 1, but we are testing with payers and clearinghouses directly.

Enjoy this ICD-10 webinar?

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Sorting It Out

Sorting It OutiStock_000015493750XSmall

by Erez Lirov

Credit cards can create a variety of compliance issues for practices

What are Shannon’s next steps to sort out her credit card system?

“Mike!” Shannon checked everything in the physical therapy facility with a practiced eye as she walked across the carpeted floor. She loved to see everyone busy and engaged, and things were going well at the moment. She had a word with the receptionist and steered her husband out the door.

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“I was hoping you’d have time to come for a walk,” Mike said. “I needed to get away from the restaurant for a bit.”

“Problems?” Shannon’s voice was concerned.

“No, just a need for a change of scenery, a breath of air.” Mike took his wife’s hand. “It looks as though things are going well at your place, too.”

“Definitely,” Shannon agreed. “I know it won’t last –”

Mike laughed. With two small businesses in the family, there were bound to be plenty of problems to discuss.

“Seriously,” Shannon continued, “I want your advice about something. It’s not really a problem, but I think I could cut costs if I made some changes with the credit cards.”

“Now you’re talking!” Mike threw his arms wide. “I can’t believe you guys post everything manually!”

“I never really thought about it before,” said Shannon, “but today I was watching and it just seems so complicated. We take cash, checks, credit cards, and debit cards for deductibles, balances, all the things we sell at the counter… And we take the information over the phone or copy it off the card. Tana took the info via text today.”

“I’d have thought that might be a HIPAA issue,” Mike said with one eyebrow raised.

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“I think it might be all kinds of an issue,” Shannon confirmed. “Plus, since we have so many different things going on, I can really see how there could be errors. Theresa said she wasn’t sure we always know when a card is declined, or if we always follow up on those cases to get alternate forms of payment, and I can believe it. It seems like practically everyone in the place took a payment at some point this morning. I don’t see how we could keep track of everything.”

“At the restaurant, the server picks up the card at the end of the meal. One type of transaction, and we know exactly who did it and when. It doesn’t sound like that’s true for you.”

“Exactly. I wonder, too, whether there isn’t a bit of psychological barrier in having to pull out that credit card.” Shannon checked her watch. “I’d better get back to work. Thanks for listening.”

“I’m happy to listen,” Mike said, turning back. “What’s your next step? I could hook you up with the company that supplied our credit card terminal.”

“I don’t know whether that’s what we need or not,” Shannon said. “Do you think we have to have something different  to be HIPAA compliant?”

“I don’t think I can answer that question,” Mike said. “Time for me to get back to my own credit card machine.”

What are Shannon’s next steps to sort out her credit card system?

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A Missing Piece

A Missing Piece Fortis is integrated into bestPTbilling software.

by Erez Lirov

In the budget of a busy practice, credit card fees can add up.

Could Shannon handle credit cards better in her physical therapy practice?

Getting the family out the door in the morning was always a challenge for Mike and Shannon, but they felt like they had a great system. Each child had a hook for a jacket and a cubby for shoes at the door. Homework went in the cubby, too, and lunches were packed and lined up on the counter. The kids knew they had to stand touching the car door till Mom or Dad arrived to unlock it, and then they scrambled into their seats and waited patiently to be strapped in with seat belts before taking off. It was noisy and it sometimes felt chaotic, but things always went pretty smoothly and everybody got where they were supposed to go.

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Once Shannon dropped off their youngest at daycare, she headed on into the office, thinking about that system. She knew that Mike would get the older kids to school on time before he went to the restaurant. Sometimes his schedule was different so they divided things up differently, but it always felt like good teamwork, and she loved that feeling.

Things had been going more smoothly at work, too. Shannon thought back to her conversation with Mike that morning as they both got ready for work. “It seems like you’ve got your team back together,” he had said, and that was just how it felt.

With that issue off her plate, Shannon could think about some of the other matters that had been on the back burner for a while. She knew the facility needed updating, for example, but that was going to need funds, so Shannon was looking at her expenses closely to see where she could cut costs and free up some cash.

It wouldn’t take much, she thought as she parked and walked into the building. There were bound to be areas where she could streamline things a little bit and achieve some savings.

She asked Theresa’s opinion as soon as she got inside, and Theresa immediately had an answer. “Credit cards.”

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Shannon was surprised. She had been thinking the free coffee in the staff room might be an avoidable expense, or that marketing costs could be cut. “What do you mean?”

“I think the fees are higher than they should they be,” Theresa said. “I know it’s a basic cost of doing business, but maybe we could shop around and see if there’s a cheaper alternative.”

Shannon nodded. They really hadn’t compared prices; when she first set up the practice, she had basically just asked the guy who installed their telephones for a recommendation, and they hadn’t revisited the question since.

“Plus, since we post all the payments manually, there’s a possibility for error. We’re all careful, of course, but I can’t swear that we catch every time when a card is declined, for example. Sometimes the person who takes the information is not the same person who posts the payment, and some are sort of automatic.”

“Sort of automatic?” Shannon hadn’t realized things were so shaky in this area.

“Well, we have clients who have set up an automatic bank draft or we have all their information in the system already, and some who are new…” Theresa’s voice trailed off. “I guess there are a lot of variables in the way we take payments.”

It was a lot like the way they got their family out the door in the morning, Shannon thought, but in this case every little extra bit of chaos could mean extra costs, not just extra noise.

“This might be the last piece of the puzzle,” Shannon said. “Or at least the next one. It sounds like a real opportunity for improvement.”

“And we could finally get some new paint in here?” Theresa joked.

Shannon smiled. “The first few hundred we save goes straight into the redecorating fund,” she promised.

Could Shannon handle credit cards better in her physical therapy practice?

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Stop Your Staff From Fighting | bestPT Webinar | Q&A

PQRS Q&A

Does your office staff argue about who is responsible for completing tasks generated by your patient visits?

How do you assign those tasks to your staff?

How can you see if the tasks have been completed?

Can you track those tasks automatically?

Do you micro-manage your staff?

How can you foster staff teamwork, promote staff autonomy and reduce the time you spend on staff management?

These are questions that each physical therapy practice owner has to answer. Each patient visit generates a list of tasks that need to be completed. Each patient needs an account set-up with their complete demographic information, their insurance information and other details you need to file insurance claims and to collect cash or co-payments.

If you break those tasks into a step-by-step list, then how do you assign those tasks to a member of your staff? How do you determine if every task has been completed for every patient? What happens if steps are forgotten? How will your patients judge your mental health practice if your staff forgets something? Would your patients think your office is unorganized?

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Q: What’s the problem?

A: Office staff including the front desk, the office manager and any employee physical therapists are supposed to make life easier for the practice owner. However they often inadvertently create additional challenges regarding patient retention, revenue and compliance. Many of these challenges are related to issues that the practice owner simply doesn’t have time for. If your staff goes on vacation or calls in sick then a backlog of tasks is created, resulting in tasks being forgotten about and mistakes being made. Every member of your staff needs to be managed and be held accountable to ensure that each task is completed correctly.

Q: Why is this problem important:

A: The short answer is Cost, Compliance and Patient Attrition.

  • Cost – Front office tasks prevent the practice owner from seeing patients, which is the only billable time for your practice. Mishandling of billing and collections results in lost revenue with denied claims and delayed payments. Ineffective patient relationship management leads to attrition.
  • Compliance – Includes incomplete/incorrect documentation, interrupted care plans, incorrect CPT/Diagnosis codes, staff unfamiliarity with procedures and staff failure to collect copays leads to overpayment by the Payers.
  • Patient Attrition – Failure by staff to follow-up on no shows, incomplete care plans and patients with no future appointments.

Q: Why is this problem difficult to solve?

A: There’s high front office staff turnover which could be due to poor training, lack of knowledge and unorganized micro-management. Some staff have a poor attitude towards training on new procedures and systems and they’re more comfortable with the old way of doing things. There’s also a lack of redundancy leaving tasks undone when somebody is absent and the ultimate responsibility falls to the practice owner.

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Q: What’s bestPT’s approach or solution?

A: A complete practice management solution for your office.

  • Improve staff teamwork with effective training to ensure optimal practice performance.
  • Improve teamwork and staff autonomy with automatic checklists of tasks that need to be completed when patients are checked-in.
  • Track practice goals to more easily improve the number of patient visits, increase revenue, submit every insurance claim, follow-up with every no show and schedule patients with no future appointments.
  • Manage staff remotely on your laptop or your smart phone by tracking task completion.
  • bestPT is a complete practice management solution that includes:
    • office workflow
    • patient relationship management
    • staff management
    • while also incorporating everything else you need like:
      • scheduling
      • billing
      • EHR
      • claim scrubbing
      • claim submission
      • claim follow-up
      • staff task checklists
      • training, etc.
    • bestPT also includes a Coach to ensure your practice uses everything in the most efficient way possible.

    Enjoy this office workflow webinar?

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Optimize Your Physical Therapy Practice Workflow with Custom EHR Software

physical therapy EHR software_workflowDo you feel stressed out because your physical therapy EHR system disrupts your practice’s unique workflow? If your documentation and forms are not integrated into your practice workflow your productivity can take a big hit. And since you don’t get paid for documenting, using EHR software that does not fit your workflow can hurt your practice’s profitability as well.

Speaking of money matters– keeping up with the ever-changing documentation requirements can be costly since software updates are very expensive. Add to that the cost of customizing your forms and your EHR system might end up burning a giant hole into your wallet.

But as PT you need distinctive forms that are right for your specialty and can be customized for your practice. Where your EHR system is concerned, ease of use should be an important factor since your technological skills are probably limited and you don’t have time to learn new software.

The best solution for your practice is an EHR system that helps you streamline your office and saves you time on documentation. Of course, saving time would be useless if it didn’t increase the accuracy of your patient record documentation. For that purpose, scoring and computation should also be included.

bestPT EHR software offers all that and more with the goal to increase efficiency and ease of use for you. Our customization options focus on the unique needs of your practice and specialty. You can add your practice logo and integrate old practice forms into our EHR Documentation called xDocs to make them entirely your own.

You don’t even have to enter all data manually thanks to check boxes and the auto-population of patient data when creating new notes for existing patients. To help you stay organized, all new forms are automatically and instantly tied to your patient database.

Best of all, you can complete your forms while still table-side with your patient instead of having to catch up on your documentation after office hours.

You can also speed up and improve your new patient data collection by having your patients fill out their intake forms at your practice’s patient kiosk. Our EHR (xDocs) also includes insurance verification forms, PT notes, and a specialized package for PTs.

Contact your Profitability Manager to activate your xDocs within your bestPT EHR system.

Physical Therapy Software | Compare Cost of Visit Documentation with EHR

physical therapy documentation_compare cost with xDocsYou can easily reduce your visit documentation frustrations with Best PT’s xDocs. xDocs simplify and expedite your daily physical therapy documentation process. This cuts your documentation time and improves your profitability while maintaining compliance.  After all, you are not getting paid for time spent on completing or searching for documentation.

So you will sleep better because you won’t have to worry about failing audits, or unpaid claims due to missing patient info. Best of all, you can complete your documentation in a few clicks with xDocs while still table-side with your patient. Then simply submit your claim in one single click as soon as you are done with your notes since xDocs documentation is located on the same screen as your physical therapy billing platform.

This optimized physical therapy billing and documentation process also makes it easy for you to send your patient documentation to referring doctors as well as payers with the appropriate ICD and CPT codes. The various customization options available are handled by Best PT’s support team so that your documentation keeps its familiar look, even in digital format.

Reducing your documentation time from ten minutes down to two minutes with xDocs will also improve your efficiency. Improved efficiency results in more income for your practice since you will reduce the amount of lost income due to time spent on documentation.

You can figure out just how much time and money your practice will be able to save when switching to xDocs. Simply replace the assumptions below with your own practice numbers and complete the calculations.

For example:

Assumptions:

  • Your average monthly revenue: $20,000.
  • Your average patient visits per month: 280.
  • Your monthly hours of operation: 180.
  • Your average documentation time per patient: 10 minutes.

Calculations: Potential savings with reduced documentation time of 2 minutes:

  • Your average time per visit: 180 hours/ 280 visits = 39 minutes
  • Time with patient: 39 minutes – 2 minutes= 37 minutes
  • Your efficiency: 37 minutes/39 minutes = 95%

=> Total Monthly documentation time with 2-minute documentation time:

280 visits x 2 minutes = 9 hours

Compare to efficiency with documentation time of 10 minutes:

  • Time with patient: 39 minutes – 10 minutes = 29 minutes
  • Your efficiency: 29 minutes/39 minutes = 74%
  • Your hourly value: $20,000/(180 hours x 74%) = $150

=> Total Monthly documentation time with 10-minute documentation time:

280 visits x 10 minutes = 47 hours

=> Time Savings with 2-minute documentation time:47 hours – 9 hours = 38 hours

By reducing your documentation time from ten to two minutes, however, you can save $67,200 per year ($5,600 per month). Additionally, you will be saving 38 hours per month that you can now spend on treating more patients.

If you need help comparing the real cost of your current physical therapy documentation software to xDocs’ improved documentation time and cost, please request an Individual Practice Evaluation. One of bestPT’s profitability specialists will assist you.

Simplify your physical therapy documentation with intuitive EHR software

Physical Therapy Software_Documentation with xDoc | BillingIf you are anxious about the new compliance standards effective Oct.1, 2014, fret not. You can rest assured that bestPT’s xDocs will automatically be updated with all required codes to make it easy for you to stay compliant. Also keep in mind that your paper forms will be pretty much obsolete. In other words, you won’t get paid at all if you submit paper forms after Oct.1 of next year.

“Our experience with setting up and using xDocs has been great. The team took my original document and was able to transform it into a functional document that we could easily access and use through the system. I was impressed with how quickly they were able to initially make the document. I was also equally impressed at how patient they were with me as we used the document and needed to make adjustments. They did so each time and made sure it was exactly what we wanted. We are looking into the possibilities of streamlining other documents into xDocs now.”

~ Melanie McGriff, Kids Creek Therapy

And since patient relationships are at the heart of your physical therapy business, xDocs have also been designed to help you turn your patients into raving fans. You can make a good impression by letting your patients use the xDocs Kiosk to check in for their appointments. Instead of filling out endless intake forms by hand your patients will only need to submit their info once. Our cloud based bestPT physical therapy software system saves everything instantly for secure storage and convenient access at any time of the day or night. You can further strengthen your bond with your patients by sending them their individual care plans through xDocs as email or PDF.

Here are 5 different ways you can use xDocs in your physical therapy practice:

1. Have patients fill out their intake forms at practice’s patient kiosk
2. Complete forms with patient while still table side
3. Provide alternative documentation to original platform:

  • PT notes
  • PT xDoc package was developed by PTs and Medicare compliance officers

4. Insurance verification forms
5. Care Plan communication to patients

Although xDocs offers a multitude of useful features for completing a variety of physical therapy billing and documentation tasks at your practice, it is easy to use pretty much ‘right out of the box’ and only requires minimal training. And unlike buying expensive physical therapy billing software, xDocs are already included in bestPT’s cloud based system at no extra charge and don’t require installation on your PC. Contact your SPOC to request xDocs access for your account.

How to find and use xDocs in your bestPT platform:

1. How to find xDocs?

    • Go to the xDoc tab in the TravelCard and click New. If you do not have any xDoc templates, please open a ticket to your SPOC.
    • Go to the xDoc tab in the patient account and follow above instructions.
    • Go to Reports > Medical Records > xDoc Medical Records to see all the xDocs created for your patients. You can create new xDocs from this screen as well.

2. How to fill it out an xDoc?

    • xDoc templates consist of text boxes, drop down menus, checkboxes, and radio buttons. Click on the section header to expand the section.
    • Fill out the note and click Save.
    • To signoff on the note, click Signoff.
    • Click PDF to open the printable version in a new window. Right-click to save a copy to your computer, print, and/or fax (applicable if you have browser-based faxing).

If anyone at your physical therapy practice runs into any kind of problems with xDocs, they can find useful instructions on the appropriate help page by clicking on the question mark [?]. Our bestPT support staff will be happy to help as well. Simply open a ticket to your SPOC with a short description of the of the issue.

You can learn more about xDocs in our Live Online Help session scheduled for this Thursday, June 20 at 3:30 p.m. ET by going to:

http://support1.enterthemeeting.com/

Dial-in: (949) 202-4265

Access Code: 8320258#