Alta Partners News & Tips.  Information to Improve your Practice
June 2006
Volume 1- Edition 1

 

Table of Contents:

       New IBM “Blade” Server Is Built For Speed!
       Alta Welcomes Several New Additions To The Family!
       
Entering State of Ohio Workers' Compensation Claims in Misys
       Let Us Hear From YOU!


Greetings!


We want to welcome you to the very first edition of our Alta Partners E-Newsletter, a new communication where we can share information, ideas, and tips to our growing number of users. We've been committed to make our billing service better and more user-friendly and recognize that you have as much to share with other users in how to better use the system as we do!

Every other month, with your input, we will get information out that we think will be helpful to you in your day-to-day tasks when using Misys.  The articles will focus on a mixture of issues, coding, Misys computer tasks, tips that can make using the system easier or general gossip about upcoming updates and improvements.

This month's "tip" article addresses the process of entering Ohio workers' compensation claims into the system.  We hope our tips will help make getting workers' compensation claims in Misys an easier one for you.

As a way to refer to this and future articles, we will place our "tips" on our website.  You can access from our Clients Only section by going to:

www.altapartnersllc.com , go to “Links”, go to “Client Support Section” and log-in:

log-in:          “altaclients”
password:  “********”

We look forward to your feedback and in creating a new way to communicate how to use the Misys system more efficiently in your practice.  If you have any questions, you may contact Bruce, Client Support Specialist at 440-808-3667, bcb@altapartnersllc.com.

 


New IBM “Blade” Servers Are Built For Speed!

Our new IBM "blade" server system is now in place and will be a critical addition to help improve our response time to you.  While our new “blade” server does not actually hold the Misys billing data, it directs the traffic of our users by managing the Microsoft Terminal Server Client which our users log into. 

We needed to add the new server due to the fact that we added several new clients in early 2006 and had too many users trying to gain access at one time!  With the new server, we can add users easily from the 200 users we have now to over 2,500 users if needed.  While we don't think that's going to happen any time soon, having the ability to more easily expand will help to ensure we don't incur the downtime and sluggish performance we've had over the past few months.  We thank you for your patience as we’ve made this transition and look forward to the faster performance the new technology will provide.
 

 

Alta Welcomes Several New Additions To The Family!

Alta customer service representative, Karin Stevens and her husband Terry, became the proud parents of Miss Sarah Nicole Stevens, born April 9, 2006 @ 2:03am, weighing in at 8 lbs., 12 oz.’s!  Mother and daughter are doing well and getting used to “family life” in their home in Medina.  Congrats to Karin and Terry!

To help fill in for Karin during her maternity leave and assist us with our growth, we are happy to announce several new additions of our own.  We’ve hired on the following employees over the past two months to help us better serve you!

Sara Russo - Customer Service Representative
Megan Bastian - Customer Service Representative
Canice May - Account Receivable Representative
Rose Schroeder - Account Receivable Representative
Paula Blackson - Financial Analyst
Paulette Byrnes - Receptionist
Rhonda Kocka - Administrative Assistant


 


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Entering State of Ohio Workers' Compensation Claims in Misys – Follow these steps and your claims won’t get hurt!

It's not that entering workers compensation charges is all that difficult.  What makes workers compensation claims such a challenge is that they require the cooperation of several parties and are comprised of multiple steps which include, obtaining information to file the First Report of Injury (FROI), getting a claim number from the Bureau of Workers' Compensation (BWC) and getting paid for your services.  And as we know, getting outside parties to cooperate is never easy!

The FROI requires sections to be filled-out by the three parties to the claim: 

  1. The injured employee
  2. The employer
  3. You, the provider of services to the injured employee

The good news is that in today's Internet era, most of the information for the FROI report can be entered directly via the web at the state of Ohio’s Bureau of Workers' Compensation website.  We’ll show you where to go later in the article.

Once the FROI is completed, the next hardest thing to do is to correctly identify the employer for data entry into Misys as either: 

  1. An employer who is "self-insured" with claims getting sent to the employer or
  2. One who participates in a Managed Care Organization (MCO) so bills get there

EXAMPLE CASE:

Susan, an employee at SuperCo. cut her finger badly while on the job.  Susan reported the injury to her supervisor at work who, in turn, directed her to your practice to assess her injury.  Because of the acute nature of the injury, Susan travels over to your urgent care center for medical attention.

When Susan arrived at your front desk she described her injury and presented some of the FROI paperwork her employer had given her.  After you inserted her in for an appointment, you reviewed what she has provided you.  As it ends up, Susan didn’t have all her FROI information completed.   However, you jumped onto the BWC website and worked with Susan to complete her sections of the FROI so that a claim number (THINK BWC CLAIM--NOT MISYS CLAIM) could be issued.

You went to the BWC website, https://www.ohiobwc.com  and since you already had an account (If you don’t already have an account, YOU NEED TO GET ONE!), you logged in and hit the “Medical Providers” tab.

Below is the BWC screen for Medical Providers that will help you get the FROI completed.

The actual FROI can be found by going to the “Featured Links, File a claim” tab.  In that screen you’ll find all the information that needs to be completed from the employee, employer and you the medical provider.  Go to the bottom of the screen and you can complete, ONLINE, your portion (medical providers) of the FROI form.   

Once all of the required FROI fields are completed for the employee and medical provider, you can “submit” the claim and wait for the BWC to issue back your BWC claim number while online.  This number will be issued even if the employer has not yet completed their portion of the FROI.  While many practices fax their FROI’s over to the BWC to get a claim number, we recommend that you file your claims online because it is faster.  Claims can be submitted from the same “File a Claim” links and, once submitted, the claim number will be issued (often within 5 minutes) back to you online.

This claim number must be entered into the “CLAIM #” field in Misys in order to successfully submit the claim.  Claims will not be accepted without a BWC claim number.  In the rare circumstance that you are not able to obtain a BWC claim number online, you can enter the employee’s social security number in place of the claim number.  However, this will delay claims processing.

Additional Help for You!

Still Confused??  You can get additional help here at Alta – Contact Jennifer Negulescu, our BWC specialist – 440-808-3712.  Also, BWC hosts a “BWC University” if you would like to get training directly from the BWC University” enrollment dates and locations are announced on their website. 

Understanding The “Status” of the Employer to Enter into MISYS/Optimum

Once a claim number has been assigned, the next step is to enter the charge data into Misys/Optimum.  The one piece of critical information you need to know is if the employer uses an MCO to manage their workers compensation or if they are self-insured.  To determine the Employer's Workers' Compensation status, go back online and look them up.  This time, from the Medical Provider page use the “look-ups tab” – Employer/ MCO lookup.  From these screen you will find the following information:

Here’s an example of a self-insured employer

An example of a business that uses an MCO. – Note the differences.

TIP: Regardless of the employer address that Susan gave us, you need to use the address for the employer as listed in the BWC – Employer look-up table – that’s the address that is able to handle the claim.  

NOTE: There are a few self-insured employers who don’t use the BWC system to manage their claims.  If the employer is self-insured and you can’t find the employer online, have the patient provide you with employer contact information.

NOW, that we:

  1. Know if the employer works with either an MCO or is self-insured and,
  2. Know the claim number assigned to the injured worker,

you are ready to enter the data into Misys-Optimum.  The directions for entering information in the insurance block will differ depending on whether the employer uses an MCO or not.  Let’s start with a Self-Insured Employer:    
 

LOADING WORKERS COMPENSATION INFORMATION - SELF-INSURED EMPLOYER:

1.      Add "Responsible Relationship to Patient" as “11” when entering patient demographics.  This will ensure the correct insurance will default during charge entry.

2.      Add the Insurance and employer information to the appointment. This information will also default during charge entry. 

         For a self-insured employer the insurance block should be entered as follows: (see below for references to screen)

          a. "Insurance"  = WORK
          b. "Category"  = WORK
          c. "Plan"             = WORK

3.       The field "Claims To" should be "E" for employer.

4.       "Relationship To Insurance" will be a 1 or 2 for male/female subscriber.

5.       "Subscriber" will be the patient.

6.       "Subscriber's Employer" will be the Employer's Address -where we will send the claim per the FROI.  

7.       "SOCIAL SECURITY OR CASE #" – Use the employee SS# unless you have already obtained the Case #.

8.       "Address Y and Address N" will be entered as “1” – The Westlake, OH address.

9.       "Responsible Type" will be entered as “11”.   

 

LOADING WORKERS COMPENSATION INFORMATION – EMPLOYER USES AN MCO:

           Add "Responsible Relationship to Patient" as “11” when entering patient demographics.  This will ensure the correct insurance will default during charge entry.

1.           For an employer who uses an MCO, the insurance block should be entered as follows:

           a.  "Insurance"  = Code for MCO, i.e. MMCW (Careworks), BWGA (Gates McDonald, etc.)
           b.  "Category"  = WORK
           c.  "Plan"             = WORK

2.        "Claims To" should be "I" for insurance.

3.        "Relationship To Insurer" will be a 1 or 2 for male/female subscriber.

4.        "Subscriber" will be the patient.

5.        "Subs employer" - not necessary to fill in, but if you have it, add it.

6.        "Case #" will be the Case # given by the bureau.

           Note: if you haven’t yet received the case number, enter the employee’s SS#.

7.        "Address Y/N" will be the MCO's address.

8.        "Responsible Type" will be an 11

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Again, if you have any questions, call Jennifer Negulescu at 440-808-3712 and she will be glad to help you out.

Let Us Hear From YOU!

We’d love to hear back from you and work to make this communication as interactive as possible.  Have an idea for an article or topic that you think would be good to put into our newsletter?  Send us an email with your topic. Be as specific as possible. If we use it in an upcoming E-Newsletter, we’ll give you a $50 gift certificate for your contribution.

Email your ideas to Stan Kasmarcak sjk@altapartnersllc.com.

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