These patients are certain to be impressed by the quality of care and advanced treatments available, but a reliable and efficient online booking process is one part of the journey that’s been missing.

We’re putting that right, inspired by the technology that transformed the travel sector.

Believe it or not, booking a holiday used to be a stressful business. Agents, phone calls and long waits to confirm your reservation. The game-changer proved to be a Global Distribution System (GDS), a central hub which enabled different service providers to exchange information about services and availability in real time. This brought order to the chaos and dramatically improved the booking experience for everyone who could go online and make their own travel arrangements.

We wanted the same for private healthcare, while ensuring everyone could be confident in the high levels of data security that we build into all our products. ICE – our integrated channel exchange – is the GDS uniting the sector to deliver real-time online appointment booking. Put simply, ICE allows anyone offering healthcare services to share them with anyone who wants to search for them. It works like this:

Access: Everyone who wants to use ICE can do so through our flexible Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) based on the internationally recognised FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) messaging standards. This enables different booking sites to connect to multiple diaries through just a single interface.

Book: Information about services and appointment availability is shared in real time with the booking websites so users can use their preferred site to search for an available slot, using a range of search criteria such as specialty, location, time and service type. Bookings can be made 24/7.

Sync: Once the appointment is booked, the diary owner’s software synchronises the information removing the possibility of double-bookings.

Why sign up?

ICE brings compelling benefits whether you’re a practitioner, practice or clinic, hospital or insurer.  At a time when more people are considering private healthcare, it makes sense to have a central booking solution that’s smooth, convenient, efficient and secure. ICE makes this a reality – fantastic for patients who want access to great care and excellent news for the long-term prospects of our sector.

It was our technology, data and expertise that enabled us to start this booking revolution. Is it time for you to join us? 

Discover More

To find out how ICE, our online appointment booking solution, can transform your booking process, contact our Business Development team.

The post Appointment booking flows more smoothly over ICE appeared first on Healthcode.

Healthcode’s reply: Use the Advanced Bill draft invoice feature in ePractice to create and update your service charges as you go. This’ll ensure the final version is accurate and complete when you’re ready to send it.

Quick guide to creating a draft invoice

• Select the patient from your patient list, click Create Bill and then click Advanced Bill.
• Complete the invoice with what you’ve carried out on the patient so far.  
• When you reach the final stage, click Save as Draft. The status of three blank boxes against the invoice on the patient’s Account tab means it hasn’t been sent yet.
• It’ll also be listed on the Tasks and Reminders section on your Status page, so you can easily return to it and update. Click Save as draft each time to save your changes.
• When you’re ready to send, click Save and send to submit to the insurer using  the Clearing Service or send to the patient via patientzone.

Discover More

Find out how to create invoices and use other ePractice features, sign up for our free online tutorials with the Healthcode Academy. The Academy’s team of Service Delivery Associates will guide you through our series of short personalised training sessions, using your own data to make the training as relevant as possible.

To learn more about invoicing using Advanced Bill see our guide in Help and Support. We also offer a 15-minute bite-size session with the Healthcode Academy  – click here to book.

To find out more about the invoicing features in ePractice contact the Business Development team.

The post Have you tried… creating a draft invoice? appeared first on Healthcode.

Healthcode’s reply: If you’re an ePractice Pro user, you can create a warning note within the patient’s profile to help you and your team stay on top of things. A yellow warning triangle will appear next to their name and on their profile prompting you to read it before doing anything else.

This feature also allows you to upload documents, such as the letter the patient sent you, your reminder letter or a clinical note.

Quick guide to adding a warning note

• Choose the patient from your patient list and then select the notes tab on their profile page
• Select Admin from the drop-down menu and then type your note in the box (maximum 2000 characters)
• Click the warning box – you can also click the pop-up box option if you want the warning to automatically display when the patient’s profile is opened
• Documents are uploaded by clicking Browse and selecting from your saved files; there’s no restriction on the file type or number of files you can add and you can increase the maximum file size to 2.5MB by contacting Customer Services on custserv@healthcode.co.uk
• Click Save Note
• Select and Delete Note when you no longer need it

Discover More

To find out more about the the warning note feature in ePractice contact our Business Development team.

The post Have you tried… creating a warning note in ePractice? appeared first on Healthcode.

Healthcode’s reply: No, you don’t as invoice auto-population enables practitioners (who are recognised as controlling specialists) to generate an invoice with the correct patient and episode fields completed, including the patient’s GP, insurer, membership number and the diagnosis and procedure codes used by the hospital. Anaesthetists and radiologists can also use this feature for episodes where they provided care and are linked to the controlling specialist.
All you need to do is add your own fee which you can do with one click if you use our pricing matrix feature. 
This feature is only available to ePractice Lite or Pro users.

Quick guide

• Check your status page for a list of all the patients where invoices have been sent by the hospital showing you as “controlling specialist” (surgeons only).
• Anaesthetists and radiologists will need to enter the patient’s last name, date of birth, treatment date and hospital in the search box.
• Select the patient you want to invoice.
• Check details from the hospital invoice, including patient, GP, primary diagnosis and procedure.
• Complete the fields for service dates and fee.
• Click Service type and select an option from the dropdown menu.
• Complete invoice by clicking save and send.

Discover More

If you’re interested in finding out more about ePractice Lite or Pro why not book a demo with our Business Development team.

Learn more about invoice auto-population and other time-saving ePractice features by signing up for our free online tutorials with the Healthcode Academy. The Academy’s Service Delivery Associates will guide you through our series of short, personalised training sessions, using your own data to make the training as relevant as possible.

We offer a one-hour billing module – Electronic billing & collection | Module 2 – that takes you through everything to do with invoicing. For those who just want to focus on invoice auto-population, we offer a bite-size option – you’ll need module 2A.

The post Have you tried…invoice auto population? appeared first on Healthcode.

In the private healthcare sector, there’s good reason for the positivity about growth in the self-pay market. Surveys by the charity Engage Britain and Yonder (commissioned by PHIN) have shown that more people are ready to consider paying for medical treatment following the pandemic. A report by analysts LaingBuisson predicted that the self-pay market would expand by 10-15% by 2024.

However, it’s important to make sure that an increased level of activity translates into a healthier balance sheet. Having the right technology to manage you practice can make the difference between running a profitable business and running yourself into the ground. Here are just some of the ways we can help.

Invoice at the click of a button

You may be seeing more patients come through your practice but you still need to make sure you get paid. Efficient and accurate invoicing is the single most important thing you can do for your practice finances.

Our innovative technology allows you to create and send invoices to all the major insurers, self-funded patients and other payors:

• Time-saving shortcuts 
  Saving time can mean saving money and that’s great for your bottom line. Our invoice auto-population feature is a prime example. If you’ve treated a patient in a hospital setting, you can search for them on the system and generate an invoice with the correct details already completed. Simply track progress with our status updates.

• The Clearing Service 
  Submit invoices to all the major insurers from one place. Each is automatically checked against the relevant criteria. Errors and anomalies are instantly flagged to be corrected and re-submitted. Simply track progress with our status updates.

• Online Payments via patientzone 
  Practitioners and clinics who are registered with patientzone can send electronic invoices to self-funded patients. Provide the convenience of secure online payment. You can also benefit from sending shortfall letters, details of debt reallocations and payment reminders.

• Paper invoicing 
  We cater for you to be truly flexible. If you need a paper invoice, our template ensures that these are clearly laid out and meet industry standards.

• Mobile invoicing 
  Available on the ePractice iOS app. We know you’re always on the go. Now you can set up and send an electronic invoice from your Apple device.

Payment tracking and collection

An effective and efficient system for recording money received will allow you to focus on outstanding invoices. However, this process is not always straightforward. Insurer payments may cover several invoices and there will sometimes be a shortfall amount to be reallocated to the patient. With ePractice you can:

• Record and reconcile payments 
  The payment tracking section of ePractice Lite and Pro makes it easy to find and allocate payments to the correct invoices. Make sure your accounts are up to date. Where insurers send electronic remittances (AXA Health, Aviva and Bupa), the system automatically analyses the remittance advice, generating a summary that assigns the payment to one or more invoices. Simply confirm with the click of a button. For self-pay patients or other payors, online payments are made via patientzone. Stay in the know – set up notifications so you can see when invoices have been paid. What’s more your ePractice is updated within 30 minutes.

• Reallocate debts 
  In the event of a shortfall, you can reallocate the debt and create a shortfall letter for the relevant patient. This automatically completes the invoice details and outstanding balance. Just register with patientzone and you can send these shortfall letters and payment reminders electronically.

Financial information

Every practice management system should provide a range of real-time financial reporting options. You need to monitor your practice’s vital signs. ePractice includes a variety of financial reports, all of which can be exported to other software. These can then be anonymised and shared as required.

Here are five of the most frequently used reports:

• Aged debt analysis displays outstanding debt by patients and segments by age bands (eg. 0-30 days, 31 – 60 days, 61 – 90 days outstanding). It’s an essential tool for credit control in any business.

• Outstanding invoices by payor shows all invoices with a current outstanding balance by payor type, including or excluding shortfalls. This makes it easy to see who requires a payment reminder.

• Invoice listing by payor provides a summary of invoices, by payor, for a requested date range. A filter allows you to view outstanding or settled invoices.

• The payment summary report shows the payments received, by invoice, within a selected date range. Now you can keep track of what has been paid and the payment method used.

• Financial snapshot provides a snapshot for the selected period, including the total number of invoices with values for payments, refunds and debts. It also provides a total of the debt outstanding at the start and end of the period.

Discover More

Find out how to invoice and track payments by signing up to our free Billing and Payments online tutorials with the Healthcode Academy’s team of Service Delivery Associates. They’ll guide you using your own data to make the training as relevant as possible.

To learn more about our ePractice features, see our guides in Help and Support.

To find out more about how ePractice can help make your business more profitable, contact our Business Development team.

The post How technology can help you make your practice profitable appeared first on Healthcode.

This series looks at how to buy a specialist practice management system to help you manage the non-clinical aspects of your practice effectively.

So far we’ve looked at how to get started and recommended some selection criteria. In our final blog, we’ll explain how to evaluate suppliers:

Step 7: Make a shortlist

Select two or three suppliers who can potentially offer the functionality, security and support you need within the budget you have set. A matrix is a good way to compare the different options and how closely each meets your criteria.

Step 8: Make first contact 

When assessing each supplier, ask:

• Do they understand the evolving requirements of the sector? Specialist knowledge of private healthcare is an asset as it means the system should keep pace with new developments.
• Do they talk your language? It is difficult to imagine a productive business relationship with a jargon-spouting representative.
• Are they financially stable? Information can be purchased from Companies House or a ratings agency. The last thing you want is for a vendor to go out of business a year after you have invested in its software.
• Are they large enough to handle your requirements? You don’t want to be dependent on one person to resolve every problem.
• Can they provide testimonials? – speak to users in similar practices. Ask about system functionality, reliability and customer service.
• Are they ready to demonstrate the system so you can assess it for yourself? It’s worth asking whether you can trial the system for a limited period..
• Clear Terms and Conditions? These should set out the level of service you can expect and not diverge from previous commitments.
• Do they have efficient and responsive customer service? Do they offer customer service that meets your needs?

Step 9: Make a long-term commitment

You need to select the system supplier who represents the best fit with your private practice, taking into account the points discussed in these blogs.
But signing on the dotted line is not the end of the story. You and your team should monitor progress, particularly during system installation or set-up if you decide on an online solution, to ensure your expectations are met. It’s also a good exercise to review the system when it has been live for six months and at regular intervals thereafter to ensure it continues to meet the needs of your practice.

Ultimately, a good practice management system should be capable of supporting your practice from the moment it is installed and as it grows.

Want to know more?

If you want to see what ePractice, our practice management software, can offer you why not book a demo with our Business Development team.

The post 9-Step Guide From Healthcode To Find The Right Practice Management Software – Part 3 appeared first on Healthcode.

However, it’s not uncommon for practitioners to be tied up for hours in frustrating telephone calls to patients, private hospitals and insurers to check that the information they’ve been given is correct or to complete missing details.

Our membership enquiry feature is a popular shortcut for practitioners with a subscription to ePractice Lite or Pro. It enables them to check the patient details they hold against the insurer’s membership database in a fraction of the time.

Membership Enquiry enhances cash flow because it helps ensure that submitted invoices include all the right information, reducing the risk of an invoice being held up in the system. As it’s encrypted, the service is a more secure way of checking confidential patient details than the time-consuming alternatives.

The service is currently available with the major insurers – Aviva, AXA Health, Bupa, Bupa Global (International) and VitalityHealth – and we’re working with the others to extend this service.

To use membership enquiry, just enter the patient’s details, select the insurer tab and then choose the relevant insurer from the drop-down list. Enter the patient’s registration number, scheme and renewal date if you have this information, but don’t worry if you don’t, and then click ‘save insurer’. At this point, the ‘Request Membership Enquiry’ button will turn blue and you start the process by clicking it.

When a match is found on the insurer database, the patient’s status appears on-screen. You can then use this data to populate your own patient database and/or update the insurer details, ready for invoicing.

Discover More

To find out more about this and other features of ePractice Lite and Pro contact our Business Development team or book a demo.

The post Verifying Patients’ Insurance Details – The Healthcode Shortcut appeared first on Healthcode.

Here are the main categories of failures that can cause your bill to be rejected at the validation stage:

1. Patient insurance details 
2. Controlling specialist
3. Procedure code
4. Service date 
5. Service item provider number 

However, some of the failures are due to things such as codes not being mapped or the practitioner’s recognition not being updated by the insurer which will need to be followed up with Healthcode or the relevant insurer.

Failed bills are frustrating but they have more serious implications for you and your organisation as payment delays can have a serious impact on your cash flow and limit your working capital. What’s more, submitting an invoice which is incomplete, inaccurate or months old can make you seem disorganised or unprofessional.

The first step to creating bills that are fit for purpose is to include all the information the recipient needs about what they are being asked to pay and why. We recommend the following is included on all invoices as best practice:

• About the invoice – invoice number and data
• About you – full name, provider number, specialty, billing address, payment details
• About the patient – patient name, date of birth, insurance company, policy number, address, where applicable diagnosis code and description, plus lead practitioner’s name and provider number
• About the treatment – the type of care delivered, date of treatment, service delivered, procedure code, total amount

Invoice templates which meet these standards are available to download here. They can be used for invoicing organisations, insurers or self-paying patients.

Discover More

If you’re using ePractice to invoice, enhance your skills by signing up for our free online tutorials with the Healthcode Academy. The Academy’s team of Service Delivery Associates will guide you through our series of short personalised training sessions, using your own data to make the training as relevant as possible.

If you’re using a third-party system see if our Help and support articles can solve any problem you’re having.

Can’t resolve the issue? Contact our Customer Services team, who’ll be happy to help.

The post Do Your Bills Pass The Test? appeared first on Healthcode.

1.  So you know how much money you are owed – If you receive a single payment for multiple bills from an insurer and you don’t allocate it correctly, it soon becomes difficult to know which invoices have been paid. That makes it impossible to chase for the outstanding amounts and means you could be forced to write off debts unnecessarily.
2. Bad debt soon hits your practice cash flow – Having a healthy cash flow position enables you to pay operating costs such as wages, equipment and rent. An interruption to your income, caused by bad debt, can quickly cripple your business cash flow and is one of the most common reasons for business failure. 
3. If you know what you have been paid, you can identify shortfalls – Not every insurer payment will cover the full amount invoiced. Identifying the shortfall when allocating payments means you can investigate if this is an error or if you need to charge the patient for the outstanding amount.
4. To avoid misunderstandings with patients – Patients can be alienated if your administration appears chaotic and inefficient. For example, it’s polite and professional to acknowledge when a patient has settled their bill and important to notify them promptly if they owe you money. This is difficult if you don’t keep track of what payments you have received, and worse, you could upset a patient by chasing a bill that has already been settled.
5. So you can manage your practice better – If you track and allocate payments efficiently, it’s easier to spot worrying trends. If you know late payment is becoming an issue, you can act e.g. by invoicing more promptly, introducing card payments so patients can pay at reception after treatment or using online payment options, such as our integration with patientzone.

Want to know more?

To find out more about how using the payment tracking and allocation functions in ePractice Lite and Pro can help you get an accurate picture of the money coming into your practice, please contact our Business Development team.

The post 5 Reasons Why Payment Tracking is Important for Private Practice appeared first on Healthcode.