IS freeb used in OpenEMR as the accounting back end or does it serve some other functions?
I ask this because I do not understand the philosophy in using it just to print a HCFA/CMS 1500 form.
If this is the only function of freeB then why just not use some php to pdf library to print a HCFA form using the last billed encounter for the patient. If the billing system can pull all these variables from the mysql tables anyway then why not just create a form that populates a HCFA form and print it.
I am looking at this and it seems PDFlib or FPDF (www.fpdf.org) could handle this. I will confess that I am no programmer and have no real knowledge in this area.
FreeB is not the accounting backend (SQL-Ledger does that); it exists only to generate claims.
As of OpenEMR 2.8.3 I have already replaced the X12 claim generation code, so now FreeB serves only to generate paper claims. It would not be difficult (just a bit tedious!) to do the same with paper claims and thus we would be rid of FreeB forever. If anyone is interested in working on that, see Claim.class.php and gen_x12_837.inc.php in the openemr/library directory. Or drop me a note if you’re not a techie, but are willing to fund the work.
My thought was to just have it print plain text onto preprinted forms, but I suppose you could output the whole form as a PDF. I wonder if such a form would have to first be "certified" by CMS?
FWIW, Medisoft can print to HCFA-1500 form or it can print the form with the claim. There is no information about the form on the form generated by the program. And so far, nobody has complained about a form being printed in black instead of red.
A real HCFA-1500 (an old one) says that it was approved by the AMA Council on Medical Service, with the date, 8/88. I have no idea if this thing is copyrighted or if it’s customary for them to extort money in exchange for being allowed to print blank forms. What matters to me is that all the blocks are the same size and location as the real thing. It’s my understanding that the insurance companies have scanners to read the forms.
The pre-printed form fill in the blank idea is a great one. I do think that you would have to have a pretty good "how-to" to address moving things slightly to line up or at least be very specific about the margin settings, etc…
I wrote a rudimentary php module to generate the HCFA 1500 form which generates the form with the data filled in, but never integrated in into OpenEMR. I guess I should finish that now that it seems freeb is going the way of the horse and buggy
