Special Fax

Accidents happen. If that's not a motto to live by, I don't know what is. We try our best to dance our way through life, but sometimes we trip...
And fall... and break our feet.

Not to worry, though. I mean, that's what doctors are for, right? It should be so simple to go in and get that broken foot repaired and be back to dancing in no time flat. Not all the time, though. Sometimes  mamba mishaps happen at work. That's when things get difficult .... Workers’ Compensation Case Managers are great at getting patients back on their feet, but from the medical end, it is often hard to communicate with them.Trying to share relevant medical documents can be a tedious chore.

That chore has suddenly become a snap. And no, I don't mean with a spoon full of sugar... I'm talking about faxes.  

Anticlimatic? Maybe, but faxes are a really great way to get information out to other organizations. They're easy, fast, and inexpensive. Faxing medical documents to Workers' Compensation Case Managers helps them do all they can get your patients back to dancing. And now, you have Rexpert's Special Fax Utility to send these medical documents in seconds!

To set this up, find the injured patient in Account Registration. Select the Account Payors button on the right-hand side of the screen.

In Account Payors, select the  Workers' Comp payor for the injured patient. On top of the Comment field and to the right of the Co-Pay field, there is a field labeled Special Fax. In this field, enter the fax number of the injured patient's Case Manager.

Now here is where the special fax number comes in handy. Previously, a Workers' Compensation Case Manager's fax number was just squeezed into the memo section of Account Payors. It was a hassle to have to go into the memo section and copy and paste the fax number into the Delivery Dialogue screen. Now, with the fax number having its own field, things have become simpler.

Going through Account Registration, into Account Documents, and selecting the Fax/E-mail button takes you to the Delivery Dialogue screen. This screen can be accessed from several places in Rexpert and allows you to send any number of faxes and/or e-mails. However, the screen will now look slightly different when accessed through Account Documents. The very first line under Recipient Name is usually blank, but you will see that the field has instead defaulted to the special fax number.

Whenever you fax an Account Document for this patient, this special fax number will be entered into the Delivery Dialogue as the first default fax number. If there are multiple account payors with Special Fax numbers, the first one in the paystream will be used. 

And with that, the medical documentation is off to the Case Manager, and we can all get back to tiptoeing through the tulips.

This scenario is just one of many that the Special Fax field can be used for. Can you think of other ways to use this field to send out Medical Documents? Let us know in the comment section below.

Contributor: Kylie McKenzie Soder

How to Flag Patients

Problem patients. You know what I'm talking about. We all have them. Those patients that call with medical emergencies, then fail to make their appointments. Then they reschedule and show up 50 minutes late. Those patients! They're flaky and waste valuable time you could be spending helping other, more reliable patients. However, with so many people in the office each day, it's often hard to remember which ones have a pattern of rescheduling/failing appointments.

No worries, there's an easy way to flag them!

In the Rexpert scheduler, a patient's display notes (if any) appear automatically when scheduling a new appointment). Here are some simple steps to add a flagged note for a problem patient which will appear whenever you are scheduling a new appointment.

First, find the problem patient in Account Registration. Here, I will be using Kitty Meowsmith. Kitty has been a baaaaaaaad patient...

On the Main tab of Account Registration, select the Notes button on the right-hand side of the screen:

Once in account notes, select the New button to create a new note. Kitty is often prone to mood swings and anti-social behavior. She's caused a lot of problems in my house... er... office... I meant office.

So now, I'm going to mark her as a problem patient. In the Message field, I write "Often fails appointments; has rescheduled 3x successively." Write whatever will easily remind you of this patient's habits, but be tactful: you never know who may see these notes, since they can be printed on billing/collection reports, etc. Make sure that the Type field is set to Display and that the Red Flag toggle box is checked. Then press Save.

If there are no other display notes, it's a good idea to spread your message over two note lines and red-flag both, because when the display notes pop up in the scheduler, the first note line, even if red-flagged, will be covered with the dark blue selector bar (see the screenshot below).

Now, whenever I set up a new appointment for Kitty, her Display Notes pop up immediately.

Now I will never forget how many problems Kitty has caused me!

Have you ever had any problem cats... uh... I mean patients? Let us know in the comment section below!

Contributor: Kylie McKenzie Soder

ABN Form

What is an ABN form? Formally known as an Advance Beneficiary Notice of Noncoverage, it is insurance, a safeguard, an agreement. Occasionally, Medicare will refuse to pay for a service that it usually covers, or will deem a procedure medically unnecessary or unreasonable. It is in these cases that the ABN form becomes invaluable.

According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) ABN information booklet, when patients fill out an ABN form, it insures that they know, prior to service, that Medicare might not cover their procedures and that they accept full financial responsibility. 

Warning: "If you do not issue a valid ABN to the beneficiary when Medicare requires, you cannot bill the beneficiary for the service and you may be financially liable." (ABN Information Booklet)

There are some things to know about requiring patients to fill out ABN forms:

• An ABN form must be filled out and submitted before the medical procedure. 
• ABN forms may not be submitted if Medicare intends to pay for the procedure. 
• You must be enrolled as a Medicare supplier or provider to use the ABN.
• The ABN must be verbally reviewed with the beneficiary or his/her representative and any questions raised during that review must be answered before it is signed. 
• The ABN must be delivered far enough in advance that the beneficiary or representative has time to consider the options and make an informed choice. 
• Employees or subcontractors of the notifier may deliver the ABN. 
• ABNs are never required in emergency or urgent care situations. 
• Once all blanks are completed and the form is signed, a copy is given to the beneficiary or representative. 
• In all cases, the notifier must retain the original notice on file.

To learn what types of procedures Medicare may not cover, consult the Medicare Coverage Database.

Simple steps to find the most recent ABN form (as of 06/10/2013):

1. Go to Medicare's website. 
2. Once you are on this site, click on FFS ABN in the left-hand selection column. 
3. Then scroll to the bottom of the page, and click the first downloads link: Revised ABN CMS-R-131 Form and Instructions.  This is a ZIP file, which will contain a folder with several different files from which you can select.
4. Choose the 508ABN.PDF and double click it to open it. Note: There is also a Spanish form in the list 508spanishabncorrected.pdf or docx.

You can also download the zip file directly.

What is the most surprising noncovered procedure your practice has dealt with? Let us know in the comments below.

Contributor: Kylie McKenzie Soder