technoid wrote on Tuesday, April 15, 2014:
I see, so Xampp is basically an all-in-one (multiple) programs installer.
It’s understandable how Lytec has also grown with more expensive software. The Lytec 6.5 we are still using was purchased $1k for a 5-user license in '96.
Yes we still use paper claims mostly because “management” understands that more than e-claims. It is hard for them to get away from it as they were born in the 1940’s. Heck we still use typewriters too, though we stopped using them in the late '80’s to fully type up a HCFA claim. Nowadays we use them to type up little stuff, like checks or adding notes to whatever. Looking back though, it looks awful, tedious and slow typing up a claim form compared to what has been done faster and convenient with computers. I still have old ICD/CPT printed lists we had to look up when typing them in. Things finally changed when we bought MD Versaform by AST (Applied Software Technology), our first PMS, in ~1988. I think AST is still around and have (or had?) their own EMR. For now we use e-claims for our Blue Cross/Shield claims. I think we have to start doing that now with Medicare.
We are interested in electronic charting/notes someday soon, but for now we’re focused on the billing aspect and I hope Oemr can do that out-of-the-box per se.
Yup, I do know how to solder/desolder. Been doing that for about 3 decades now since as a kid. Taking soldering classes for motherboard factory work back when I was at Intel Corp also helped.
Will just have to wait and see if and when our doctor does make the final decision to retire. He has also thought about locums, but that could be farther down the road. He’s about 71 now.
I just finally was able to format to HCFA 02/12 in Lytec 6.5 over the weekend. The worst part was conversion from numeric to alpha in box 24E for the dx pointers. If you count all the possible different realworld combinations you can use for 4 ICD codes, there are about 14 of them. However I could only codehack about 3. It’s basically a programming space limitation in 6.5. So all I can get in for now are the DX pointer combinations of “1”, “12” and “123”. Converted to HCFA 02/12, this corresponds to “A”, “AB” and “ABC”, which are our top 3 high hitters (and probably for most other small/medium sized GP/FP clinics, idk). I could not hack in “ABCD”, which can also be a big one. Talking to the doctor, those top 3 should suffice. You have to wonder why they need 12 different DX’s in this new format, which is why they changed to alpha. Just me, but I would think that 9 or 10 codes would’ve sufficed, hence stay with numerals 1-9… or maybe 0-9 (or 1 thru 0 if you know what I mean). I’m thinking my next programming hurdle may be ICD-10. I believe the rudimentary requirement for that format is a field able to take in 9 characters, i.e. xxx.xxxxx, but luckily Lytec 6.5 already has that built-in.
Anyway, this 02/12 thing is a big programming win for me as this lengthens our tenure with Lytec 6.5 even more. The last big win was last year when I was able to get some workarounds to get electronic claims going (it had an outdated hardfixed e-claim system, so instead I just used ascii print image to send to Office Ally). Anyway, hopefully these stopgaps will give me more time to peruse other software including OEMR.
Better stop here, already long post, lol. 