ST Therapist #3: “I have Jane Doe right before that she could use another discipline today.” OT Therapist #2: “oh thank you, I have him for OT right afterwards.” ST Therapist #1 announces to the group: “John Doe just cancelled his ST appointment.” Imagine the ability to coordinate cancellations, announce when authorizations come in, ask questions of individuals or groups, and do it all from any computer or mobile device. STOP!!! PLEASE!!! Slack ( ) is an excellent solution to your communication problems best part about it is that it’s completely FREE! It’s not HIPAA compliant so you will have to avoid using personally identifiable information about clients but that’s easy to do. I’m always surprised to find my new clients using group texts and calling each other to share information. Communication ToolĮvery office needs a communication tool where all the therapists can coordinate and share information quickly and easily. The cost is minimal and the benefits are incredible. This will save you or your back office a TON of time every month. It automates the process by checking eligibility every single day, logging a report with that patient’s eligibility, and emailing you an alert with any changes to a patient’s eligibility. Eligipro takes the stress out of daily eligibility checking. If you have a large Medicaid patient population, you absolutely NEED Eligipro ( ). If you choose to do so, you can use these Clearinghouses as your primary billing software but I’ve found that it’s a lot easier to make mistakes when doing that so I would encourage you to use an EHR/billing software to eliminate a lot of those errors. Office Ally only charges you if 50% of your claims are going to a Medicaid payor and even then it’s only ~$20 per month easily affordable for even a small practice. I use Office Ally but Availity is another popular system. For this reason the insurance companies subsidize the cost of Clearinghouses and make it super cheap for you to use them. Clearinghouses are set up to validate the claim data fields before they are ever sent to the payors. If you have a billing software, you’ll need a clearinghouse to submit your electronic claims. This piece of technology goes along with the first one hand in hand. I’ve trained therapists from ages 23 to 65 and no one has failed yet. If you have 4 or more therapists, it is very cost-effective (see their website for details), it’s easy for therapists to learn the system, and it helps with a number of daily tasks to include Scheduling, Documentation, Billing, Payment Posting, and Payroll. I’ve reviewed a lot (not all) of these technologies and found my favorite for small to medium-sized therapy practices is Clinic Source ( ). You’ll save tons of time, you’ll get better at tracking your claims, and you’ll probably catch things that used to fall through the cracks like those pesky Pre-Authorizations that seem to expire like every day. However, in the end you’ll never regret making the change. These systems can be expensive and time-consuming to set up so I recommend doing your research before picking your “horse”. I mention this one first because it often takes the biggest leap of faith especially when you’re transitioning from a 100% paper business. As part of my billing service, I work with clients to set up all their technology tools and train their therapists to ensure a smooth transition. I’ve found that once my clients take the leap of faith (with my help of course), they can’t ever imagine life without these time-saving tools. However, I was born into an “analog” world so I also understand that technology can be scary to adopt at first. If it can make my life even a little bit easier, I’ll find a technology that can do the job. Let me start by saying, I come from a technology background having worked with several tech start-ups across the country.
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