Does my practice or medical group need special software to use athenahealth services?
What data is migrated from our old system and what happens to our old A/R?
Can there be separate fee schedules set up by physician/clinic?
Are superbills specific to a physician/clinic/specialty, etc.?
What is the function of the expiration date field on the add insurance details page?
What is the utility of primary dept vs. dept of registration why the distinction?
Insurance selection: How many insurances comprise the most commonly used list?
How do you currently set up schedules for x-rays or ultrasounds?
athenahealth Response: No. Users simply need to have Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher and an Internet connection such as DSL or frame relay.
Benefit to You: Our solution is easy to set up, use and maintain.
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athenahealth Response: We do not sell our software as a separate, stand-alone product.
Benefit to You: athenahealth provides continuous, real-time, workflow automation solutions. We use our state-of-the-art tools to deliver these services through an ASP (application service provider) model.
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athenahealth Response: athenahealth imports patient schedules and patient demographic data where necessary. We do not import patient insurance information.
Benefit to You: Our goal is to give you clean information so that you have accurate information to generate clean claims. We do not import old accounts receivable records as this would impair the ability to produce clean, clear and meaningful reporting. You may temporarily maintain your old system to resolve unpaid claims.
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athenahealth Response: Yes.
Benefit to You: Clinics may have different fees schedules. These schedules will be set up during the implementation process and are easily maintained.
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athenahealth Response: athenahealth and each practice
Benefit to You: The practice, along with our implementation team, loads the initial fee schedules. The practice is then responsible for maintaining the fee schedule on an ongoing basis. This provides the practice with the optimum control over their fees.
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athenahealth Response: Yes
Benefit to You: Through the news and messages screens, practices have the ability to send a receive messages internally within the athenahealth system.
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athenahealth Response: They can be customized as needed
Benefit to You: This provides great flexibility at the practice to customize billing slips by clinician or location. Updates are quick and easy.
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athenahealth Response: Your medical group.
Benefit to You: Through the extensive reporting functions, practices have the information which is invaluable when negotiating managed care contracts.
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athenahealth Response: There are several ways. There is an insurance reporting category "roll-up" or you may define your own custom groupings (HMO, PPO, etc.)
Benefit to You: The ability to group insurance packages into custom groupings at the practice level provides the user with refined reporting for the individual practice. athenahealth also offers pre-defined insurance groupings for standard reporting.
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athenahealth Response: If you generate a claim with a date of service which is after the expiration date, the claim will go into HOLD. The user will get a message indicating that the patients insurance has expired.
Benefit to You: This features provides the security needed to prevent users from submitting claims when the patient's insurance has expired.
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athenahealth Response: Yes, there is a process in place that lets clients prevent duplicate schedules from being created.
Benefit to You: Flexibility – clients can merge templates prior to applying them system wide.
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athenahealth Response: The primary department is typically where the medical record would be stored.
Benefit to You: It is also useful if you are trying to track patient transfers between offices; i.e.. how many patients start out in one clinic and end up moving to another; athenaNet lets you know where the patient originated in the system.
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athenahealth Response: The number of insurance plans listed on this screen is at the discretion of the practice.
Benefit to You: For setup, typically a practice may enter 25 insurances and would then tailor the list at a later date.
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athenahealth Response: You may create a provider named xray or ultrasound and then build out schedule templates for these purposes.
Benefit to You: This feature allows the practice to schedule procedures when the rendering provider is not known at the time the appointment is made.
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athenahealth Response: The CBO at athenahealth maintains the master file for insurance companies.
Benefit to You: The turnaround time for insurances to be added to the system is typically 48 hours. Claims are automatically placed on hold until the package has been added and the account also displays a warning on the patient quick view screen that indicates the insurance is still pending. The system will not allow the claim to be billed out unless the insurance package is valid and confirmed by athenahealth's experts. This guarantees that insurance packages that are used by your staff are accurate.
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athenahealth Response: athenahealth uses the most recent zip code list. This list is updated periodically.
Benefit to You: The benefit of this feature is that is reduces the amount of data entry your staff must do to register a patient, therefore speeding up the registration process.
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athenahealth Response: If a master file is built into one practice, athenahealth can duplicate that master file across other practices.
Benefit to You: The benefit is reduced setup time.
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