ECW Users

Is There A Way to Generate Statements As You Go Along?

2012-02-01T11:56:18-06:00

We are a sole provider office and like to keep billing/collections simple. In our old system, we did not send statements out in monthly/periodic batches, we just sent them out as we went along. For example, patient Smith’s insurance pays all but $20 of a claim so while still in the patient’s account from posting the payment/EOB, we could generate a statement right then and there and often get the patient’s payment right back.

Clean, simple, easy to keep track of, no researching hundreds of accounts all over again every month. Why is generating/printing statements so much more complicated than, let’s say, submitting claim batches? In the course of conversation with Memorial Hermann eCW support techs, I have asked this question over and over again to no avail. The issue has not been escalated to eCW proper (I mean, it seems like such a simple thing to want/do!).

How do y’all do it?

e-payments error

2011-10-24T10:32:05-06:00

Is anyone experiencing an “invalid user id” error when running a credit card using e-payment? Support has been trying to fix the problem since we have gone live on 10/10/2011 and it is still happening. The credit card transaction goes through but it does not post to ecw or print a receipt. We are getting the error on both swiping the card or manual entry. Please help I have a front desk staff that is really fustrated.

Patient Credit Balances

2011-08-12T09:34:58-06:00

How does everyone handle tracking and dispersing refunds for credits due to the patient? Our docs require that we leave any patient credit on the account for one year before issuing a refund. In the meantime, these constantly come up on reports and I find myself wasting time reviewing these accounts. Questions: 1. How do you notate the credit for front office staff so that they utilize the credit rather than collecting additional money at the time of service? 2. How do you manage these in reporting?

Thanks!

Billing for Web enounters

2011-11-07T15:22:18-06:00

Does anyone do this? We have noticed that we have patients being “portal hogs” and they seem to be using the web telephone encounters in lieu of actual office visits. Is there a way to create a claim for this? Would this be billed to insurances or straight to patient? What codes are used??

Collections Module

2011-11-17T16:18:36-06:00

We have trying to use the collection module within eCW for a few months now and we are having some trouble getting accounts to move through the cycles as they should. For example, I generated C1 letters and them did a search of what accounts were in cycle 2 and “applied the rule” and everyone I just sent a C1 letter was then in C2, even though the 25 days in the collection “rule” hadn’t yet passed. I’m getting the impression that the “Apply” function doesn’t work for claim based collection, so how do you know your accounts are being moved throught the cycles correctly the “rule” doesn’t “apply”?

Another situation we’ve seen is we will generate a C1 letter, wait the 30 days or more, do a search and “apply” the rule to see who would now need to get the next letter/move to next cycle and 40 or 45 days will lapse and no accounts come up when I do a search? If we have our cycle set up for 25 days, shouldn’t these accounts show up when searching based on the “rule”?

Is anyone out there having better luck with claim-based collection in Version 9.0? If you’re not using the eCW Collection Module, what are you doing instead after statements?

TransFirst and Amex

2011-12-22T14:50:41-06:00

FYI:

Not sure how many of you accept American Express, but to let you know they charge an additional $4.95/month for paper statements and $7.95/month in processing fees. This is in addition to what you are paying TransFirst.

Storing credit card info with ePayments

2011-12-16T13:13:19-06:00

Here is a tip I just learned from a TransFirst specialist.

If you want to store a credit card number to be used for future transactions such as deductibles owed you can use the recurring payments feature on transaction central. (You need to have a user ID, merchant ID, and password to access transaction central.)

You would need to set the billing type as manual and the date to one in the future. This will store the card info but not charge any amounts unless you manually process it.

Patient Aging on Statements

2011-11-29T22:23:09-06:00

Hi!

ECW tells me that patient aging (30, 60, 90 days past due, etc) will not show up on statements. They say they do not have the capability to show if the patient has received more than one statement for the balance. Is this true? Is it the company we outsource to do statements that can’t do this, or is it within ECW? ECW says it’s within them, and are working on a fix, but that just doesn’t make sense. I can’t believe that it hasn’t been incorporated yet.

Any help/thoughts/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!

Levonne
Tumwater Family Practice Clinic
A/R Coordinator
V9.0

How do you post a payment from the Collection Agency?

2011-11-10T14:09:10-06:00

We have 6 facilities that we bill for. When an account is referred to an outside collection agency, we write it off using a collections adjustment code, bringing the balance to zero.

When a collection agency makes a payment, how do you account for it in eCW?

Reviewing accounts to add to collection management cycle

2011-11-03T22:20:05-06:00

How do you remove accounts from the list that are not actually past due, but have received the amount of statements that make them past due?

We have it set up to add our patients to the cycle if they have not paid in full or set up a payment plan after 3 statements. Problem is, sometimes we have gotten new billing information from the patient, which then should reset their cycle. But it doesn’t. So their account will pop up each time. We know we can click the remove button to take them out of the list we are currently reviewing, but how do we do it so that it doesn’t show up again until they have actually received 3 new statements after we have billed with the new information?

Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!