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PRACTICE EHR HELP CENTER

Update – March 2021

Help Center > Latest Updates > March 2021 Update

OVERVIEW OF UPDATES three-images

 

Practice EHR is excited to share the March 2021 release. This release includes many enhancements specifically directed towards clients that have the value-add of the Practice EHR Kiosk patient check-in software. Other enhancements in this release, not related to the Practice EHR Kiosk, can be found under the “Additional Enhancements” section of the release notes.

1. Kiosk patient check-in enhancements: Kiosk forms increase the efficiency of your check-in process and now Practice EHR allows you to leverage that workflow even more by selecting which patients see which forms during their check-in experience. This enhancement will be a building block for future improvements in Q2.

It is important to distinguish between administrative form(s) and the clinical in-take form(s) which transfer data into the chart note for a specific encounter. Clinical forms intended to gather data specific to the treatment plan will still need to be carefully coordinated with the clinical templates used by the practice. Administrative forms that are simply reviewed and signed or acknowledged by the patient are the focus of this enhancement.

There are two decision points for assigning which forms will be available for the patient to complete upon check-in – at the point of appointment scheduling and within the Case Management workflow.

Appointment Scheduling Window

From the calendar window the user can book the appointment of a patient, which will prompt the Appointment Detail screen. The available kiosk forms are now displayed on the right. The forms in green have been identified by the practice as First Visit forms, or forms to be completed by all new patients. The ones that haven’t been highlighted are identified by the practice as the All Visit forms, or those forms that may be completed by either a new or established patient. For any specific patient appointment, individual forms may be selected or deselected to control which forms will be available within the Kiosk for that patient’s appointment.


If the individual patient should not complete any administrative forms at the point of check-in, the user is able to deselect all of the forms in the available list.

Once the user has selected “Create Appointment,” the patient can check-in through the kiosk application and each of the selected forms will appear one by one. The last screen will prompt the patient to “check-in” at which point all forms will be transferred to the Document menu of the EHR.

If the user has created an appointment from the recurring appointment window, the kiosk form section also appears in this window to the right and has the same concept applied to it as in the normal appointments booked from the calendar.

Case Management / Case Detail Window

The ability to select which forms appear in the Kisok has also been added to the Medical Case Detail window in the Case Management section under the Insurance tab. Pathway: Patient module > Insurance > Case Management window > Click on the Case # and the Medical Case Detail window with the kiosk forms section will appear. The individual forms to be associated with a case must be set in the Medical Case Detail screen.


Within the Case Management workflow, the new kiosk forms section has two parts:

  • First Visit:
    This section has all the forms that have been pre checked as being available to a patient on the first visit assigned to an individual case. The forms were assigned this status at the request of the provider. There is room for flexibility should the user wish to either check or uncheck any forms not selected by default. In the event no case is associated with an appointment, the system will forward both First and All Visits kiosk forms to the iPad.

  • All Visit:
    All forms are those that will be available to the patient on the Kiosk regardless of the visit type. They remain selected along with the First Visit forms throughout all the appointments a user books for a patient who wants to check-in via Kiosk. This section also has the flexibility that allows users to both check and uncheck other forms not selected by default.

Once the forms on each type have been checked according to the requirements of the patient and provider, the appointment can be made for the patient.

While booking an appointment, if the user does not select a case then both types of forms (All or First Visit) that have been either checked by default or manually by the user from the appointment window will appear for every visit of that patient during the kiosk check-in process.

The system will automatically uncheck the First Visit kiosk forms the next time you book the same patient’s appointment with the same case. First Visit forms can still be selected by users when necessary.

  • Recurring Appointment window in calendar:

If a case has been linked with any of the patient’s past visits or if the first time one is being linked in any of the visits in the recurring appointment detail window, then the application will uncheck the First Visit forms for any future appointments of that patient. However, if no case is selected then both First and All Visit forms will be carried forward until a case is linked, in which scenario the former kiosk forms would not be auto checked. Note that automatic uncheck by the application in terms of these kiosk forms can be altered manually. Pathway: Scheduling > Calendar > Dropdown > Recurring Appointment.

The kiosk forms associated with a patient’s case and/or appointment can be managed from any pathway that leads to the Appointment Detail or Medical Case Detail window.

 

Additional Enhancements

2. Create a list of all insurance plans:
Users can now export their insurance plan master list to an excel sheet, and from there either view, print or save that data into their system. In order to export, select a line item and click on the excel icon. Pathway: Setup > Plan > Click the icon.

 

3. Print a practice fee schedule:
Users can now export their CPT & Fee schedule to an excel sheet. From there they can either view, print or save that data into their system. Pathway: Setup > CPT & Fee > Click the icon.

 

4. Change the category name without deleting the category:
Users can now edit the category names for ICD and CPT codes in the encounter form of the patient’s visit. This will allow flexibility in terms of correcting any spellings or errors that might occur when naming either type.

Open the patient’s respective encounter form and click on the design button at the top.

A window with three subsections will appear. First select the section you want to change. Then select the category name you wish to edit.

After you’ve selected an item, it will automatically appear in the Category Name field. From here you can change or edit the name, such as change ‘BRAIN’ to ‘HEART’ and select save.

The edited name will appear as shown below:


 

5. Warn before creating a duplicate patient:
Users will now see a warning before creating a patient when a registration for a patient with the same name, date of birth, and gender.

 

6. Prevent a progress note from being signed without a last seen date for Medicare:

The patient’s Last Seen Date is required on an insurance claim form by Medicare to reimburse for specific medical services (i.e., routine foot care). Practice EHR now provides the following workflow to assist the provider in meeting this requirement. This workflow begins when the user checks the “Enforce Last Seen Date” within the insurance plan profile and updates the plan. Pathway: Setup > Plan > Search > Select insurance plan.

When the patient’s Last Seen Date is populated on their individual insurance tab within their chart, that data will populate within the clinical visit and upon signing the note, within the Visit Detail when a new visit is created. Pathway: Patient > Insurance > Select individual plan.

There are two edits within the system to ensure that the appropriate information is entered and available for claim submission.

When the status of the clinical note is updated to “Ready to Sign Off,” the system will review the data. If the Last Seen Date field is not populated within the clinical template, then system prevents the sign-off and displays the message, “Last Seen Date Missing, please enter Last Seen Date before clicking Ready to Sign Off.”

If Last Seen Date field within the clinical template is populated but the date is more than six months from the date of the visit (i.e., visit date is 1/1/2021 and Last Seen Date is 7/1/2020) the system prevents sign-off and displays the message, “Last Seen Date is more than six months, please update the Last Seen Date before clicking Ready to Sign Off.”

 

7. Export a patient’s ledger:
Users can now export patient financial data directly from the Ledger window. This will allow them to save or view that data directly from their system. Pathway: Patient module > Financial tab > Click on the Ledger button > Patient Ledger window will open with an excel icon next to the Print button.


 

8. Save and/or print patient forms:
Prior to this change, printing a patient’s form required multiple inconvenient steps for users. Now users can simply click on the new Save and Print button at the bottom of the form.

 

9. See complete appointment history on the patient portal:
Prior to this change patients could only view scheduled and confirmed appointments in the appointment section of their portal. Now every appointment, with any status from the appointment status dropdown in the scheduling calendar will be updated in the patient’s portal under the appointment tab.

Note: The Office Visit Scheduled Appointments section in the patient portal will only include appointments that have been scheduled and confirmed. Whereas the Appointments History section will have appointments of every status including scheduled and confirmed.

 

10. Use a single dedicated pathway for RCM support:
For clients who opt for Practice EHR’s billing services, the Support Center on Home will be replaced by the RCM Manager tab in the billing module. Each request will still be tracked as with the Support Center, but this change will ensure that all requests will be promptly seen by the dedicate team assigned to the practice.

 

11. Reorganize inactive providers:
It is important to keep a provider associated with specific transactions even if they leave the practice. To avoid staff scrolling past inactive providers to find those who are still active, all inactive providers will appear at the bottom of the provider’s dropdown list. The inactive providers will be highlighted in yellow for users on a windows-based system or appear light grey for an iOS program.

Windows: