Moderator
07.10.2017
Please note that this article contains information that is only relevant to American clinics.
As you know, all of the treatment and service charges that you submit to Medicare insurance carriers are based on the American Medical Association’s (AMA) set of CPT codes. Among these codes is CPT code 97799—unlisted medicine/rehabilitation service or procedure. But as you can undoubtedly see, the CPT code’s description is rather vague, and open to interpretation. In this article, we’ll be clarifying CPT code 97799 and providing some examples of when you might need to use it.
CPT code 97799 should be used when the therapy service or procedure that you’re providing is not described by a more specific CPT code. A recent article from Gawenda Seminars and Consulting cited dry needling (acupuncture) and hippotherapy (horseback riding) as examples.
The article then goes on to cite the AMA’s 1999 CPT Assistant, stating “when reporting an unlisted code to describe a procedure or service, it will be necessary to submit supporting documentation n along with the claim to provide an adequate description of the nature of the [procedure or service].”
As a reminder, Practice Perfect EMR comes preloaded with an entire library of CPT codes so that there’s no need to manually enter your clinic’s commonly used treatment and service charges. By providing you with the entire list, you’re able to handpick the CPT codes that are relevant to your practice, and discard the rest.
We hope you found this article helpful. For more great information about Medicare and the proper use of CPT codes, check out the Gawenda Seminars and Consulting website and learn more about the benefits of becoming a Gold Member.
Moderator
03.21.2016
Psychologists are hard pressed to keep up with the many different needs of their patients, grappling with their many different mental states–and they have to do this while still trying to turn a profit. Fortunately, their choice of psychology EMR software can help take some of the pressure off marketing your business by giving you the tools you need to grow your practice.
The EMR software solutions presently available to psychologists tend to focus on clinical documentation and patient care, and don’t necessarily appeal to the business side of things. Now, I don’t mean to downplay the importance of patient care—I just mean to call attention to the success and growth of your practice, and where psychology EMR software fits into that.
Practice Perfect has firmly established itself as an industry leader in the field of clinical documentation, billing, and EMR, but today we’re going to look at the ways our software is being used to grow practices across North America. Here are some practical examples of how clinics are using Practice Perfect to fit their marketing needs:
Patient follow up
It pays to keep in touch with your patients. A good psychology EMR software includes a special place for patient profiles where you can log all of your communication with them. Some will also let you set reminders for when you need to get in touch with them again.
Oftentimes a patient will visit your practice for an assessment and wait weeks, or months, before reaching out to you again. Practice Perfect comes equipped with a built-in reporting system that lets you easily identify the patients you haven’t seen since assessing them. From there, it’s as simple as dropping them a line and letting them know that you haven’t forgotten about them.
Tracking your referral sources
Your referrals come from far and wide, and being able to record exactly where they’re coming from is immensely helpful. For example, if there’s a certain organization that’s supposed to be supplying you with patients, and it seems slow in your office as of late, you’ll be able to tell which referral source is underperforming. Conversely, if you ask your patients where they heard about you, and you’re finding that an overwhelming number of them found you on Google, you may want devote more resources to your web based marketing strategy.
Click here to ‘Like’ Practice Perfect on Facebook.
Connecting with other professionals
The ability to manage a rolling list of your professional contacts is a key component of any EMR software worth its salt. If your practice works with a certain individual, or organization, on a regular basis, then misplacing their contact information is simply not an option. And to add to that point—some payors require you to note the referring facility when you’re submitting claims.
Word of mouth
“Word of mouth” is likely the oldest form of marketing known to humankind. Word of mouth marketing happens when you’ve provided a product, or service, that was so good, people took it upon themselves to do your marketing for you.
“But I thought this article was about psychology EMR,” you say. “What does word of mouth marketing have to do with it?”
Well, on the surface the two aren’t explicitly linked but we can’t overlook the fact that a good psychology EMR empowers private practices to provide better customer service, better treatment, and create an overall better experience for their patients. A software that lets you send birthday reminders, schedule follow ups, and create individualized treatment plans is going to help you go the extra mile and get people talking about your clinic.
Click here to follow Practice Perfect on Twitter.
Moderator
03.14.2016
There are plenty of good reasons why your physical therapy EMR software needs to be reliable, but in this article we’re just going to take a look at 7 of them:
1) It’s your digital assistant
Your physical therapy EMR software essentially takes on the role of your digital assistant. It can record your appointments, set reminders, and log all of your communication with a patients and payors alike. ReminderCall, one of Practice Perfect’s add-ons, even lets you send out automated appointment reminders and birthday calls to enhance your patient compliance.
2) It’s your digital bookkeeper
The best physical therapy EMR software not only gives you a way to cut down on paper usage, but it makes tracking key information like accounts receivable easier and more efficient. And on top of that, you won’t ever need to fear an audit again once you’ve gotten into the habit of leveraging your EMR software’s electronic billing capabilities–every monetary transaction can be traced back to it.
3) It’s where you keep your patient information
Every single one of your patients is in a unique situation. A good physical therapy EMR software pays heed to this and includes separate client profiles for each patient. In effect, their client records give you a place where you can record the specific details of their ailments, their treatment, and their progress. Simply put, your EMR software can help you provide your patients with better care.
Click here to read about the role of referrals in PT practice growth.
4) It’s where you keep your payor information
Like your patients, payors are unique unto themselves too. A good PT EMR software allows you to create profiles for every individual payor and record key data like their contact information, their billing preferences, and their adjusters. Insurance claims can be denied if the submission doesn’t fit the payor’s billing preferences (e.g. you billed them in hours when they wished to be billed in units) which is why it’s ever so important to use an EMR software that lets you record this kind of information.
5) It’s how you organize your staff
If your clinic employs multiple providers, you’re going to need to keep tabs on them. Your providers may work different hours, they may work at different locations, and they may provide different types of treatment. A well-rounded physical therapy EMR software like gives you an opportunity to house all of this information under one roof so you aren’t scrambling to find out what everyone is up to.
6) It’s how you integrate with outside software and systems
Whether your clinic is located in Canada or the U.S., the need to communicate with external software and systems remains the same. Say for instance you need to create a custom form that’s specific to a payor, but you don’t have time to continually fill it out over and over again. EMR software like Practice Perfect lets you create customized forms in Microsoft Word and save the templates within Practice Perfect. From there, reproducing your customized document is as simple as pressing ‘OK’.
7) It’s how you run the perfect practice
All of the above factors work in sync to help you run the perfect practice. Our physical therapy EMR software was designed to help you take time away from the minutia and give time back to treating patients. When used properly, Practice Perfect will not only help you build better relationships with your patients, but it will enable you to create unforgettable experiences.
Moderator
03.07.2016
If you’re an occupational therapist there’s a good chance that you’ve spent some time checking out the different EMR software available to you. No doubt, there are a lot well-equipped EMR systems out there with bushels of features, but do they include all of the core functions that you need to run your practice? And to add to that—what’s even considered a core function of occupational therapy EMR software?
Whenever I’m planning a purchase, regardless of whether it’s something small like a pair of boots, or something big like a vehicle, I like to do my due diligence. I need to know what the various options are bringing to the table, and more importantly, I need to know what makes them unique. After years of researching, for school, for work, and for myself, I’ve whittled my comparisons down to two categories; need to have, and nice to have. I hope that this article can help you apply the same principle to your choice of occupational therapy EMR software.
So what comes to mind when you think of features that your EMR software needs to have? Are you a fan of electronic appointment scheduling? How about integrated clinical notes? And where does electronic billing rank on your list? I’m inclined to think that all of these qualify as need to have features for the modern occupational therapy practice—but then again, I work at Practice Perfect and our software includes all of these features in the base price so admittedly, I’m a little bit biased. But after some research, I’ve compiled this short list of features that your occupational therapy EMR software needs to have:
Client profiles
Medical records are complicated. Albeit, they’re a little less complicated when every patient in your practice has their own separate client profile. It helps when you’re able to keep all of their demographic information, contact information, and insurance information under one roof.
Scheduling
Clinics with multiple therapists, especially those with more than one office location, or treatment providers who work offsite, stand to gain a lot from using a software that incorporates electronic scheduling in the process flow. Occupational therapy EMR software like Practice Perfect allows you to include everything you need to know about an appointment including the incident(s) your patients will be receiving treatment for, the nature of the treatment, and where they’ll be receiving it.
Billing
Once upon a time this might have been one of those features that was nice to have—most would have considered it a luxury to bill their patients and payors electronically! But, I think that the intricacies of today’s billing requirements have fashioned electronic billing into a must-have feature for occupational therapy EMR software. For example, some payors won’t think twice about denying a claim due to incomplete progress notes. And wouldn’t it be nice if your software warned you about incomplete notes before letting you try to submit an invoice?
Reporting
Reporting goes hand in hand with the billing component of your software. When your clinic sees handfuls of patients daily, juggling their financial information, their clinical information, and everything in between can be a major challenge. It’s in situations like these where things like outstanding payments can fall through the cracks but having an integrated reporting system at your disposal helps curb these issues and ensure that everyone holds their end of the bargain.
Marketing tools
Marketing revolves around building relationships. It’s not just about clever gimmicks and staying top of mind—it’s about creating a conversation with them that and letting them know they’re valued. A nice way of doing this is by sending birthday messages or appointment reminders to let patients know that you haven’t forgotten about them, and you’re looking forward to seeing them again. Practice Perfect chose to include these functions in our software with the hope of helping you foster lasting relationships with your patients.