USING TRACERS
You may, at any time, reprint an existing bill in the
TPS2000. It doesn't matter if this bill
is completely unpaid, partially paid or entirely paid. It is possible to reprint it from the
original batch. However, it may not be
convenient or efficient to reprint original bills under some circumstances,
TPS2000 has the ability to automatically track and then create on demand
Tracers and Rebills.
TO REPRINT AN EXISTING BILL – To reprint an existing bill
you need to locate in which batch this bill resides. You may do this by opening the Claim for this
patient and clicking on LEDGER Tab. Find
the date of service and go to the far right side of the ledger (you may do this
by grabbing the slide bar at the bottom of the ledger with your mouse and
moving it to the right – OR – use your TAB key to move field by field to the
right). You will see three columns. One will show the date of that this service
was billed to the primary carrier, one will show the batch number in which it
was billed and the third shows the bill number that contains this particular
date of service.
Once you are armed with this information, open the [B]
for Billing. Now click on the icon for
“Show List of Records”. Find the bill
batch listed in the ledger and either hit enter or double click to select. Now find the bill that contains these
services and put a checkmark in the print box.
Next click on [Print Bills]. This
will reprint the original bill for this patient.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THESE BILLING TYPES –
AUTO-REBILL -
This is the process of automatically generating new bills for services which
were previously billed to the carrier and not fully paid by the carrier. (Fully paid is based on the carrier portion
of the service as compared with the amount paid against that carrier's
portion). If the patient has paid his
portion, this will not effect the rebill process. REMEMBER the full amount of the service will
be billed even if a partial payment has been received.
TRACER -
These bills deal with entire bills that have been previously generated that are
completely unpaid. (Completely unpaid is
based on the carrier portion of the services contained on the bill as compared
with the amount paid against that carrier's portion). If the patient has paid his portion, this
will not effect the tracer process.
MANUAL-REBILL - This is the process of manually
generating new bills for services which were previously billed to the carrier
and not fully paid by the carrier.
(Fully paid is based on the carrier portion of the service as compared
with the amount paid against that carrier's portion). If the patient has paid his portion, this
will not effect the rebill process.
REMEMBER the full amount of the service will be billed even if a partial
payment has been received.
ADD A TRACER BILL BATCH
If a bill is
eligible for a TRACER batch, you will never see it in a REBILL batch, and
consequently, if it is eligible for a REBILL batch it will not be seen in a
TRACER batch. Because of this, if a
tracer that was processed today has still not been paid one month from now, it
will again appear in a tracer bill batch.
As well it should, it is still outstanding and payable. In this way you will be able to keep a tight
hold on collections and those carriers that try to "put you off" for
as long as they can. You will use the
Tracer Process when a bill is "Missing in Action". The insurance company says they never received
it, or it has been more than 30, 45 days (whatever you decide is the wait
period you're willing to have) with no response from the insurance
company. To be eligible for a Tracer
Batch every service line that was on the original bill must still have the
entire carrier portion due. In other
words, there were no lines on this original HCFA that were entirely the patient
responsibility, or you have not, since processing the original bill, adjusted
off the entire service.
To start a new bill run, click on the [+] icon on your
Navigation Bar. You will see the message
“Do you want to start a new bill run?”.
If you answer YES it will create a blank screen ready for you to enter
data. Under Bill Type – choose
TRACER. Next choose Bill To –
Carrier and Attorney Statements (NOTE: Tracer and Rebill are for Carrier/Attorney
bills only. If you need to reproduce a
patient statement, you will need to follow the steps above for reprinting a
bill).
Level will fill in with Primary automatically (if you are
tracing a secondary or tertiary billing, you will need to change this setting).
Bill Date will default to Today’s Date, this may be changed if you wish, by
clicking on the small calendar to the right of the date entry.
Minimum Bill Amount – This is the smallest amount due for
which a Carrier Bill will be processed.
NOTE: Do not make this amount
greater than the smallest services and/or inventory item provided. I.e. if you sell an ice pack for $3.00, do
not make the minimum bill due greater than $3.00 or there is a chance that this
item may never be billed.
Maximum Bill Amount – This is the largest amount that you
want to see on a bill run for an individual patient. There are some states, or even specific
insurance companies that don’t want to see a bill larger than $300.00. Anything over this amount goes to a
supervisor and may delay your payment.
TPS 2000 allows you to control how much is billed in a single bill run.
End Date -- This date defaults to yesterday’s date,
however, it may be changed if you wish, by clicking on the small calendar to
the right of the date entry.
Once you have filled in the above settings click on
CREATE BILLS…
You will now be on the selection screen for carrier
billing. From here you may select all or
only some doctors for billing.
Next, decide if you will be billing ALL CARRIERS,
SELECTED CARRIERS, CARRIERS BY TYPE or only certain patients FOR SELECTED CARRIERS.
When you have made this selection, then click on [Create
Bills]. When the batch is produced, you
will see a list of all of the bills within the TRACE parameters – PLEASE
NOTE: ONLY THE BILLS WITH CHECK MARK IN THE
PRINT FIELD ARE ACTUALLY TRACERS, IF THERE IS NO CHECK MARK SET BY TPS2000, DO
NOT PRINT IT.