Completing The Electronic Remittance Advice (Era: Fill & Download for Free

Our overall best pick for electronic medical records (EMR) systems and medical practice management software is AdvancedMD. It offers a flexible user interface and powerful features that you can customize to suit your practice's workflows. The company also has great customer service and makes ongoing training available to practices that want a support partner in the early days after their go-live date.PricingAdvancedMD's pricing plans are unique in their variety. You can select one of two pricing models. There is the per-provider, per-month model, which is the standard pricing model across the EMR industry. AdvancedMD also offers the option of an encounter-based program, in which practices only pay per patient encounter.AdvancedMD offers stand-alone medical practice management software (without the EMR system) for $429 per provider per month. For a fully integrated AdvancedMD EMR and practice management solution, pricing starts at $729 per provider per month. The company does not offer a stand-alone EMR system.For the encounter-based program, we obtained a quote of $2.18 per encounter, with a $500 monthly minimum. That means a practice that sees at least 229 patients per month could take advantage of AdvancedMD's EHR/PM system for as little as $500 monthly, regardless of its total number of providers. This gives small, low-volume practices access to a powerful EHR system for a manageable cost.AdvancedMD is somewhat more expensive than some other EMR solutions we reviewed, but it is also one of the only services that offers the encounter-based pricing model. One factor that makes it more expensive is the several add-ons that cost extra, some of which are automatically included with other systems we reviewed:Appointment remindersInsurance eligibilityCredit card processingE-prescribing of controlled substancesElectronic faxingLaboratory interfacesFor practices that require medical billing support, AdvancedMD offers a revenue cycle management (RCM) service that costs 4% to 8% of a practice's monthly collections and includes access to the entire software suite and all add-on features.Ease of UseAdvancedMD has a modern and well-organized user interface, but it can be overwhelming at times. The sheer number of options in AdvancedMD makes it intimidating software for new users. However, with guided training and time to learn the system, clinical providers and practice staff should be able to successfully navigate the system. Most tools are accessible in multiple ways, so each user can develop shortcuts that work best for their role within the practice.The hardest part of using AdvancedMD seems to be understanding all the shortcuts and templates. These features seem useful for cutting down the time it takes to fill out a patient's chart, for example, but they are not necessarily intuitive to a first-time user. Taking full advantage of AdvancedMD requires knowledge of how to operate these shortcuts, which a one-on-one trainer can demonstrate. AdvancedMD also maintains self-guided educational material on its website to help you better navigate the system.There's a lot about AdvancedMD that takes some getting used to, but if you're looking for an all-in-one EMR system, it's worth suffering the learning curve. As you become familiar with the options that best suit your personal preferences, you should be able to navigate AdvancedMD with reasonable ease.AdvancedMD EMR FeaturesAdvancedMD is particularly feature-rich EMR software with a wide range of tools that you can access in multiple ways. Here are some of AdvancedMD's major features.DashboardThe AdvancedMD dashboard provides a bird's-eye view of your practice's clinical operations. Using "donut filters," which you can customize based on what information you want to see first, the dashboard displays data about charge slips, clinical notes, prescriptions, documents, images, lab results, pharmacy requests and more. You can also use the dashboard to navigate to your inbox and view any secure messages you've sent or received through the system.To view more information about a specific area, you just click the donut filter associated with it. For example, the HealthWatcher donut filter reminds staff and providers about patients who need to visit the practice regularly. It allows you to set recurring visits, list the reasons for that visit and automate reminders to patients, all without leaving the dashboard.Appointment SchedulerAdvancedMD's scheduler is a customizable, color-coded calendar that you can filter by provider, location, visit type and more. It can display in a daily, weekly or monthly format to give an overview of how many patients the practice is seeing.You can set all new appointments directly in the scheduling tool. Once the appointment is set, you can send any intake forms to the patient. Patients will be notified that they have received forms via the secure patient portal, or they can fill them out on an iPad when they arrive for their visit.You can also check patients in and out with two clicks of the mouse directly in the scheduler. When you're checking a patient in, the screen will display a rooming feature that allows you to assign them to a specific exam room and notify their provider that they are ready to be seen.Clinical NotesWith AdvancedMD, you can tie specific note templates to certain appointment types. For example, if a patient is coming in for a consultation, you can set the necessary templates to pull up automatically when you select that appointment type.The toolbar displays a timeline feature, which shows items you've worked on with the patient in the past. It includes their previous types of appointments, notes, lab orders and prescriptions. You can also drag and drop to connect items together, allowing you to review multiple data points at once.A quick view of patient cards is available. The cards show patient risk factors, the summary of any healthcare plans based on their recent visits (which you can double-click for details), problems the patient is experiencing and any medications they currently take. The cards also include educational material you can send to the patient through the patient portal for them to review on their own time.The right-hand side of the screen shows patient cards, medications, problems, allergies, lab orders, documents and plan summaries. This toolbar offers drag-and-drop customization as well, and the system remembers these unique configurations on a user-by-user basis.You can click a card to expand the view; for example, you can expand the list of the patient's current medications to also show all previous medications they've been prescribed. You can order new prescriptions or refills directly through this screen. Prescriptions can be signed and sent to the pharmacy electronically.AdvancedMD integrates with Surescripts to check patient insurance and see which prescriptions the patient has filled within the past year to generate a historic list of their medications. All that information can be downloaded and imported into the EMR, so even if it is the patient's first time at your practice, all their medication history will be available. AdvancedMD also integrates with DrFirst for electronic prescriptions of controlled substances.Patient EncounterOnce the patient is checked in and placed in a room and a nurse has captured their vitals, you can update their status to "ready for doctor" with a single click. Any intake forms that they filled out prior to the visit are available in the EMR. The nurse can add to these intake forms if needed.The exam tab at the top of the screen allows you to pull up the notes associated with the patient's appointment type. Notes are customizable to suit your practice's workflow. You can add information to notes by typing, dictating through software such as Dragon or M*Modal, or using acronyms and hotkeys.You can add ICD-10 diagnosis codes into the note with the help of a "pick list." The full library of ICD-10 codes is also available under the exam tab, so if you don't know the code you need offhand, you can search for a code based on the patient's condition. After you fill out and save an exam note, you can export it to AdvancedMD's practice management module for billing.Under this exam tab, you can also set up favorite medications or lab tests to speed up the process of prescribing new medications or ordering certain tests. If you regularly see patients with similar conditions, for example, you can bookmark their typical treatment plans to expedite the orders of medication or tests.AdvancedMD Medical Practice Management FeaturesAdvancedMD offers a fully integrated practice management and billing platform. Medical billing services are also available for practices that want to outsource a portion of their revenue cycle management. Here are some of AdvancedMD's major features for medical practice management software.SchedulingThe AdvancedMD scheduler allows staff to set new appointments on a color-coded calendar that can be organized by provider, location or other custom filters. Staff can view the calendar in a daily, weekly or monthly display. Upon setting an appointment, staff can register new patients or ensure the existing information is up to date.Once appointments are set, staff can run batch insurance eligibility checks, or they can verify eligibility on a patient-by-patient basis. On the provider's side, a schedule snapshot shows their appointments for the day.If your medical practice has multiple locations, the daily snapshot displays the location of a patient's appointment. You can hover over a set appointment for quick facts about the patient, including their name, address and insurance. The quick-view format also shows the type of appointment the patient is scheduled for and clinical notes for any recent visits.Another helpful feature within the scheduling tool is a waitlist. Staff can fill any open time slots in the event of cancellations or reschedules, and they can manage waitlists and assign new appointments based on a particular patient's availability.BillingThe AdvancedMD billing module offers powerful revenue cycle management tools. AdvancedMD integrates with Waystar and TriZetto clearinghouses, and clearinghouse fees are included in the subscription price of the software. The software includes a complete ICD-10 coding library and a library of CPT codes, which makes looking up and properly coding encounters quick and easy.Once a provider releases the clinical notes from a patient encounter, the charges are pushed through to the billing module. If you handle your billing in-house, your own coders and billers can review the charges to generate claims and submit them through the clearinghouse. With AdvancedMD's billing services, you have access to a team of certified billers and the company's claims scrubbing software, which guarantees a minimum 96% first-pass resolution rate.The system delivers explanations of benefits and electronic remittance advice (EOBs and ERAs) digitally, enabling your team to review communications from payers. You can also manage denied or rejected claims directly, revising them before resubmitting them. To capture patient copays and outstanding balances, AdvancedMD integrates with credit card processors, allowing you to accept debit and credit cards during a patient's visit.ReportingAdvancedMD offers advanced reporting capabilities that offer insights into your practice's financial performance, daily operations and clinical statistics. The full suite is called AdvancedInsight. A financial dashboard offers easily digestible information that can be filtered by provider, insurance payer, facility location and date range.Reports can be filtered by collections, claims and more to give administrators a clearer picture of where their revenue comes from. All reports are exportable to PDF and Microsoft Excel. You can customize the financial dashboard to show the key performance indicators your medical practice relies on most. The data is mapped out in bar and line graphs that are easy to understand at a glance.You can configure the dashboards to show financial trends such as your practice's monthly performance, the leading payers for your practice, and the number of days patient bills spend in accounts receivable. Custom reports can also be generated and delivered to user inboxes on a recurring basis.ImplementationAdvancedMD recently changed its implementation plans from a series of tiered pricing packages to a one-time cost for comprehensive training and configuration. A sales representative for the company that the cost can vary but is typically about $5,000. This implementation price includes more than 20 hours of one-on-one training, online training courses and custom configuration, during which the company helps practices set up unique workflows, templates, macros and more. Implementation also includes a dedicated account manager, who oversees the process and follows up with the practice after the go-live date.Implementation and training for AdvancedMD can take eight to 11 weeks from the time your practice's insurance credentials are received. Make sure you allot sufficient time to ensure the system is fully functional and your staff is adequately trained before your planned go-live date.LimitationsAdvancedMD previously offered a tiered implementation package that was suitable for practices of various budgets. With the elimination of the low-cost implementation plans, the upfront cost and somewhat high monthly subscription price might be too much for small practices on a budget.What makes AdvancedMD great – its many features and flexible navigation – also means it has a steep learning curve. The training during implementation is a must, and you are likely to reference the self-guided materials for some time before you feel comfortable with all the nuances of the software.

What is FinTech?The term FinTech is derived by joining two words which are financial services and digital technology. In a nutshell, FinTech simply prompts the use of digital technology by startups to come up with innovative products and services such as mobile payments, alternative finance, online banking, big data, and overall financial management.FinTech was introduced as a technology that was used at the back-end systems of financial institutions and banks. However, since then its definition has changed significantly. Now it encompasses several applications that are consumer based. By 2019, you can trade stocks, manage funds, and pay for your insurance and food via this technology.The Fintech for banking has impacted numerous applications and revolutionized the way consumers access their finances. Its impact ranges from mobile payment apps like Square to investment and insurance companies. This profound impact of FinTech can also be seen as a potential threat to the brick-and-mortar or traditional banks.In today’s digital era, customers are not keen to go for services provided by the traditional financial services industry. Instead, they prefer services that are quick and safe. This is the reason why FinTech and FinTech is gaining popularity and causing disruption in the banking and other financial services.Now, let’s see FinTech’s impact through some stats. According to a study that took place in 2016, a vast majority of Americans (84 percent) use FinTech for managing their finances. Moreover, the majority of them use between one to three apps in order to manage their finances. In addition, around 69 percent use these apps at least a few times a week and around one-third use it on a daily basis.Currently there are approx 1.7 billion people world wide without any bank accounts. FinTech comes as a savior for all those people by providing an easy option to participate and access the financial services without any need of a bank account. FinTech is the best option to carry out financial inclusion since it’s developed to provide consumers a direct access to their finances through simple yet cutting-edge technology.How FinTech is changing the financial industrySmart Chip TechnologySmart chip ATM cards have significantly helped in minimizing the financial loss that occur in the case of mishaps. It comes with EMV technology that is embedded in the chip. This technology uses a one-time password for each transaction. This increases the security since the code is valid only for one transaction; so, even if somebody steals it, he won’t be able to do anything.Bank officials generally advise their customers to memorize their pin to avoid unnecessary hassles and troubles. Bankers are constantly looking for ways to combat thefts and frauds by providing top-notch security to its customers. As compared to smart chip, the magnetic stripe technology uses the same pin for all the transactions, thus making it more susceptible to frauds.Biometric SensorsFinTech in banking industry has given birth to many innovations and biometric sensors is one of them. Biometric sensors along with Iris scanners are two technological advancements that ATMs are witnessing. Moreover, these advancements are path breaking since it would simply eliminate the need to carry your plastic card. Furthermore, you won’t need to remember your pin.Apart from providing convenience and ease, these advancements will also make ATMs secure than ever since you’ll be able to access your own account without any password. The biometric ATMs use integrated mobile applications, fingerprint sensors, palm, and eye recognition to identify the account’s owner. To make the identification more accurate and secure, ATMs also use micro-veins which completely eliminates the errors made by ATMs in customer recognition.The usage of biometric technology brings a huge sigh of relief for all the customers who get panic even at the thought of losing their ATM card. It’s because due to this, they would be able to access their funds even when they have lost their card.Online TransactionsMonetary control Act (MCA) was setup in 1980 with the primary purpose of promoting an efficient payment system in the entire country by encouraging competition between private sector payment service providers and the Federal Reserve.The Automated Clearing House (ACH) assisted in efficient processing all the electronic interbank payments taking place in the whole country. These electronic payments include insurance premiums, social security, salary, dividend payments, bill payments, and direct debits of mortgage.The Federal Reserve report for the year 2016 reads that the number of online transactions processed in that year 2015 were more than 3362 million, which is way more than 1189 million transactions that took place in 2012. A similar kind of rise was also seen in the credit card payments. Furthermore, there was a steep rise of more than 45% in the number of payments redirected from the merchant sites as compared to 2012.The same trend was followed debit card users too. There was a massive increase of more than 90% in debit card users. In the year, 2012, there were about 2.1 million debit card transactions which rose to over 270 million debit transactions in 2015.Omni-channel & branchless bankingFinTech financial services is transforming the entire banking system from a branch-specific process to various digital channels such as online, social, and mobile. It also reduces the bank’s dependency on its brick and mortar branches to function.As a result, we see many banks reducing their number of branches by adopting the omnichannel banking. Only in the European Union, around 9100 bank branches were shut down by the end of 2016.Customer service chatbotsFinTech providers have also come up with customer service chatbots that have really become popular in the recent past. Chatbots are nothing but bits of software that use machine learning and natural language processing that enables them to constantly learn from human interaction.Chatbots are highly efficient as they streamline customer interactions like query handling and directing customers to the required departments.Chatbots can also perform other functions such as that of Bank of America’s chatbot Erica, which can provide investment advice to its customers. Whereas, the chatbot used by UBS can scan customer emails autonomously thus reducing the total time taken in the task from 45 minutes to mind-boggling two minutes. Similarly, a chatbot used by Japan’s leading bank can help customers to find relevant piece of information on their website.Chatbots have become an integral part of all the banks since it not only reduces costs and enhances the customer satisfaction but also allows agents in the call centers to focus on value addition.Artificial intelligence (AI)Over the years, AI has become an integral part of the FinTech banking services. AI along with Machine learning is vital for fraud detection. The software that banks use for fraud detection generates alerts whenever there’s a potential fraudulent transaction. Later it is backed up by the human investigation that finally determines if the attack was real or false.However, with time the detection of attacks is becoming difficult since the attacks are becoming more sophisticated as the day passes. Due to which a lot of time and money is consumed. Moreover, the risk of customer data loss is always there. To combat this issue, banks are now adopting AI technology.According to McKinsey, the adoption of machine learning-driven statistical modeling, data aggregation platform, and process automation can totally transform the AML operations by simply infusing new efficiencies.For example, the data aggregation platforms can account data and mine unstructured transaction to offer 360-degree customer view. This view assists in faster transaction validation. Moreover, with machine learning algorithms, the banks can leverage historical data to predict and determine patterns of a fraud attack. This will reduce the manual effort by approx. 50%.E-WalletsThe immense growth of E-wallets is another indicator of the rise of FinTech financial services. Samsung Pay, PayPal, Android Pay, and Apple Pay and are some of the major e-wallet companies in the world. These wallets are used for a plethora of purposes namely P2P payments, top-up & utility bills, international remittances, booking tickets, and many more.There are also some standalone wallets such as Starbucks and Walmart Pay. E-wallet have managed to attract users due to their tempting offerings which includes exciting offers, lucrative cashbacks, and reward points, and many more. Due to their huge success, many banks are now realizing its importance and are recognizing e-wallets as a collaborative measure to embrace the technological advancements.Mobile BankingThe increase in the use of smartphones has forced banks to come up with mobile applications that offers convenient FinTech banking services. Today, most of the banks have a mobile application which has a user-friendly interface. Banks have also come up with mobile apps that recognizes the fingerprints of the user. The application performs this function without any biometric app or hardware.A mobile application provides quick access to funds. With a mobile application, the user can perform several banking functions such as quick bill pays, check deposit, account balance, statements, and many more.