MAY NEWSLETTER

Printable Version

“BillFLASH” Now Available for

Electronic Statement Processing

You do your claims electronically, why not your statements too? Stephens & Associates is offering electronic statement processing through a company called NexTrust. The service is called BillFLASH. Stephens & Associates can set up your computer over the phone to submit your statements to NexTrust, and then NexTrust will take care of the printing, folding, and mailing of your patient statements. They will even include return envelopes for you! All for less than it typically costs to do it yourself. You save on paper, ink, envelopes, postage, and most importantly TIME! BillFLASH even has many advanced features such as automatic address verification, multi-colored, completely customizable statements with removable payment coupons, and the ability to view the statements online.

New Copies of Medi-Cal ID Cards Required

As of January 26th, 2005, Medi-Cal began issuing new insurance cards with 14 digit insurance ID numbers. These new numbers are no longer based upon the patient’s social security number. Medi-Cal is allowing the use of BOTH the existing 9 digit numbers or the new 14 digit numbers during a 6-month “phase in” period. After that time, Medi-Cal will no longer accept the 9 digit numbers. While it is always a good idea to ask your patients if they have new insurance cards when they come in to your office, you should especially remember to ask your Medi-cal patients for copies of their new cards. Users of our Validator direct electronic claims program can enjoy the security of knowing that once the 6 month period is over, your Validator can check to make sure the ID numbers you are using are 14 digits long, thus avoiding those rejections by the payer.

NDCLytec 2005 Introduces Autoposting!

NDCLytec 2005 has introduced ERA Autoposting! This feature is a great time saving feature that will allow you to have all of your payments from electronic payers automatically posted into your practice. For the full details on how it works refer to the Article in the Support section of our website or click the link below.

http://www.stephensassociates.com/articles/using_ndclytec_era_features.htm

THIN Becomes Stricter

For those of our clients that have come to enjoy and appreciate the service that The Health Information Network (THIN) has offered for free unlimited commercial claims, there is an upcoming change you will want to be aware of: In the interest of reducing rejected claims at the payer, THIN is implementing some stricter guidelines for the claims that they accept. Most of these stricter guidelines do not affect our clients, as we have always held ourselves to higher standards, but one of the changes (the edit on the “SBR09” field) will need the attention of any of our clients who have not updated their Validator program in a while. Specifically, some of the older versions of our Lytec form files had this field incorrectly hard-coded with an “MB” (for Medicare, part B). If you are using any Lytec 98, 2000, 2001, or XE version forms prior to revision 7, or any Lytec 2004 form prior to revision 8, you will want to contact your Validator support representative for a newer version. The Lytec 2005 form, and the AltaPoint versions are unaffected by this change.