The NDCLytec ERA Autopost feature
is a great time-saving feature that will allow you to have your
Lytec 2005 program automatically post all your payments from
electronic payers' EOB's into your practice!
In order to use this feature, you must send claims electronically,
and thus be able to receive your “Payment Advice” (also
known as “Explanation of Benefits,” or EOB's) electronically.
This tutorial will address how this feature works with the Validator.
You will send your claims, and receive
your mail just as you always have with the Stephens & Associates'
Validator program. When looking at your reports in [Utilities\Reports
and Mail], if you attempt to open a file and it is an ERA file, you
will receive the following message:
Click [Yes], and you'll see the next
screen:
Browse to the location you wish to
save the files (the default for NDCLytec is shown above.) Then
Click [Save] to save this ERA file where Lytec can easily see and
open
it.
Once you have received your ERA files, and the Validator has
pointed those files out to you, it is time to post the payments
into your
practice. From within the NDCLytec program, choose [Billing\Electronic
Remittance Advice].
The first time you use this feature,
a screen like the following will appear:
The nice thing about the dropdown
lists is that you can choose only those Transaction Codes that
are appropriate
for that category. For example, the Primary Payment dropdown list
will only fill with full insurance payment codes, etc. The other
nice feature is that you can assign a specific code to use when
the payments are zero.
We use a special “zero payment” code. This allows
us to, before the end of the day, do follow-up on those items which
did not get paid. Just like the Apply Payments Wizard, you will
need to have the correct types of codes available, even if you
do not plan to use them all.
Once you click [OK], choose [File\Post
Remittance File]. You will immediately be prompted for which ERA
file to post. Lytec
will rename a remittance
file that has already been posted, so the files you are looking for
would all be files with an “.era” extension. By default,
the Validator places your remittance file in C:\Program Files\NDCLytec
and gives them the correct “.era” extensions. It is no
coincidence that this is the default location that Lytec first looks
to in order to find the ERA file.
Choose your ERA file and click [Open],
the following screen appears:
In addition to our having the ability
to use our “special” payment codes for zero payments,
the system also will ask how you want to handle those situations
where the payer does not pay. A Partial Payment is recommended
in this case (see above) rather than a full payment. This will
keep the responsibility in the hands of the insurance company so
you can re-bill them if need be after making any necessary corrections.
You can also choose to specify WHICH claims will be handled by
the automatic Medi-gap handling. This is the Lytec feature that
marks the secondary as having been billed once you receive payment
from the primary. Use this feature ONLY with a Medicare ERA file,
as other insurance companies usually do not automatically
forward your claim information to the secondary payer.
Once you click the [Post &
Print] button, the program will post the payments and print a paper
EOB for your
records.
If the posting did not go properly,
you would want to select [No] here, so you could attempt re-posting
the files.
Here is an example of what the ERA
file looks like when previewed to screen/printed. It is very
much like the paper EOB's you are used to getting:
You can either print or preview the
ERA files to obtain a paper copy of the EOB.
And now you are done!
