dgardea wrote on Monday, January 09, 2006:
I’ve succesfully installed OpenEMR 2.8, FreeB, and SQL-Ledger 2.4.16 (and of course PostgreSQL). I’d like to begin testing generation of bills in all formats. Do I really need SQL-Ledger for this? Thanks.
sunsetsystems wrote on Monday, January 09, 2006:
You don’t need SQL-Ledger to do billing. However it’s highly recommended because it’s the only reasonable way to keep track of your receivables.
Also if you think you’ll be using SL later, it’s better to install it up front. Otherwise you’ll have a bunch of patients that you can’t do billing for and you’ll have to go back and manually update each one to get them into SL.
– Rod
www.sunsetsystems.com
drbowen wrote on Monday, January 09, 2006:
I don’t use SQL-Ledger at all.
SQL-Ledger is most useful for general accounting and accounts receivables in a general business. It will perfrom these functions for a medical practice very well.
SQL-Ledger does not have the practice management and AR tools that are needed for a medical practice.
I have 13 different charge schedules with several thousand charges per schedule. The AR management in a Medical Practice needs to be able to track underpayment by third party payors on all of these CPT code - charge combinations and warn the billing personnel that are posting payments. The third party payers routinely underpay and inappropriately bundle reimbursements.
Billing downcoding and inappropriate bundling is rampant among insurers and TPAs. In fact I have been named a class member in a federal law suit where CIGNA, HealthNet, Wellpoint, Anthem, Humana are sued in the United Staes District Court, Southern Disctrict Court of Florida. The basis of the acction is violation of the RICO anti-racketeering statutes of the United States.
I would seriously consider consulting with an accontant who has experience with medical practice billing and ask their recommendation.
I would like to see an practice management module integrated with OpenEMR with general accounting handled by SQL-Ledger, Qiuck Books or whatever your accountant prefers.
Sam Bowen, MD
dgardea wrote on Monday, January 09, 2006:
Rod and Dr. Bowen: I appreciate both your prompt replies. I may consider pulling the plug on SQL-Ledger for now due to the added complexity, training, and support needed in getting this implemented within a physician practice.
The good news is that I’m at the point where I can successfully run through the billing processes for HCFA and X12, create PDF’s and such, but my contents have been blank so far. Is this the case because I do not yet have CPT4 codes loaded into OpenEMR?
drbowen wrote on Monday, January 09, 2006:
There are several earlier threads on the blank PDFs. I would back through these to see if this will help debug the problem.
Sam Bowen
sunsetsystems wrote on Monday, January 09, 2006:
Sam, have you looked over the EOB stuff in the ‘Accounting and Receivables’ section of my recent screenshot presentation? OpenEMR (in conjunction with SQL-Ledger) has a lot more medical AR capability than it used to. In fact a client I was talking with just this morning said she thought it was the ‘best part’ of OpenEMR!
Of course, knowing how to deal with underpayments is a whole 'nother problem.
– Rod
www.sunsetsystems.com
dgardea wrote on Monday, January 09, 2006:
Rod, would it be possible to get a copy of your referenced screenshot presentation that describes this medical AR capability?
Thanks,
sunsetsystems wrote on Monday, January 09, 2006:
See:
http://sunsetsystems.com/screenshots.php
or
http://www.oemr.org/modules/cjaycontent/index.php?id=2
– Rod
www.sunsetsystems.com
dgardea wrote on Tuesday, January 10, 2006:
Rod, very nice presentation on the integration with SQL-Ledger. Thanks very much for forwarding the links. BTW … you and Dr. Bowen have been excellent resources (all your posts and documents) in getting OpenEMR going. I have been doing a lot of reading here and in the prior forum.
Best regards,