Suggestions

Day-to-Day Users
1

cerber98 wrote on Tuesday, March 20, 2012:

Hello!

I wanted to put in my 2 cents’ worth and suggest a couple of possible additions:

1. A “refresh” button near billing summary on top of patient’s chart. When I enter fees on the fee sheet, the balance due does not automatically update. I have to leave the patient’s account, then come back in to refresh. It would be nice to have a way to refresh that amount.

2. For specialist practices, it would be convenient to have referring and PCP names on the chart. I’ve set up 2 optional fields on the demographic layout to “Referring MD” and “Primary Care Physician” (these can be different sometimes, so I needed both separately). However, we currently have to type them in every time. How about adding a table called “referring_physicians” that stores their names, address, phone, fax number, and NPI. That way, on the demographic info, I could make these fields into drop-down lists. I know some people use the provider table for referring MD’s, but it really should be a separate table, since they are not practice providers. Then, eventually, code could be written, so that the PCP’s name and NPI go on the claims under “referring physician”. Again, some people use another field (?17 or 19) on the demographics, but currently it states “Provider”, which really means my clinic provider…

3. I’m sure everyone creates their own patient statements, though some may use the standard one that’s included with the system. If anyone is interested, I’ve updated my patient statements to have a slightly better (IMHO) layout (with a tear-off portion). In addition, it lists the actual descriptions of procedures, not just the codes, number of units for each procedure, and, perhaps even more importantly, populates the addressee (not the patient’s name) from Guardian’s name field (if present). That way, if the patient is a child and their parent’s name is entered, the bill will be addressed to the parent, but still have the patient’s name on it under “Patient”. I think that would be a nice modification for the community…

Thanks!

2

tsvas wrote on Tuesday, March 20, 2012:

After the patient is opened, we used to copy patient name and id from the top frame.  For example FirstName LastName (1000).  Now from version 4 onwards it doesn’t allow to copy the name.  Try it…  Since it is a link, it won’t allow you…

May be we should consider a small enhancement to copy patient name (and id).

3

tmccormi wrote on Tuesday, March 20, 2012:

3. I’m sure everyone creates their own patient statements

I think you could contribute your changes as a option and we could put it in the the contribs dir…
-Tony

4

cerber98 wrote on Tuesday, March 20, 2012:

Sure, if anyone wants it. It actually fits the #10 double-window envelope perfectly… However, I don’t really know how or where to put it. Let me know…

Any thoughts on the other 2 points?

Alex.

5

bradymiller wrote on Wednesday, March 21, 2012:

Hi,

Regarding number 1, can’t you click on the patient name in the title bar to refresh the patient summary screen, which has the Billing widget at the top left?

Regarding number 2, I consider this issue a bug. It is discussed here along with a proposed fix:
http://www.open-emr.org/wiki/index.php/Active_Projects#Assigned_Provider_ID_and_Referring_Provider_ID_conflict_bug
(just waiting for somebody to either fix it or sponsor the fix)

-brady
OpenEMR

6

cerber98 wrote on Thursday, March 22, 2012:

1. Actually, clicking on patient’s name doesn’t refresh the billing amount in the billing summary on top, nor does it refresh the list of encounters in the drop-down box…

2. Wouldn’t it just involve a change in the X12/CMS claim generation code, where the “referring MD” and NPI are populated from a specific field in the demographics table joined with a new table that has referring MD information/NPI in it? Just wondering…

Thanks,
Alex.

7

tmccormi wrote on Thursday, March 22, 2012:

Fixing this issue for new installations is not all that difficult, fixing it so that people that have used the existing field in the past is tricker.   The upgrade would need to know what the patient_data provider field was used for in order to know how to treat it.
-Tony

8

bradymiller wrote on Friday, March 23, 2012:

Hi Tony (and everybody else),

This can be upgraded safely; check out the plan in the wiki page here:
http://open-emr.org/wiki/index.php/Active_Projects#Assigned_Provider_ID_and_Referring_Provider_ID_conflict_bug

Basically, we can simply create a new field for referrers and then copy over the info from the provider field to this new referrer field. So, nothing is “broken” any more than it previously was for the upgraders, but they can now add separate  main providers and referrers, if needed.

-brady
OpenEMR

9

tmccormi wrote on Friday, March 23, 2012:

That’s a simplistic approach, no bad, just simplistic.  It would be better to ask the upgrader whether the current ProviderID field is being used for referring providers and move the contents if the answer is yes and do nothing if the answer is no.   If you don’t do it that way then someone has to go back and clean out the one this is now bogus.

I know our current upgrades don’t ask questions, but in this case it would be better for this user in my opinion. 

Optionally, the upgrade could just create the new field and a separate script could be run optionally if the user needs to move the contents.

-Tony

10

bradymiller wrote on Friday, March 23, 2012:

Hi,

Does this minor issue merit spending resources and complicating the upgrade process with a question that most users will not even understand? Nothing is broken by copying it over, since the current field now equals both the PMD and referring provider. We are simply making two separate fields with the same functional outcome.

-brady
OpenEMR