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Can Medical Manager handle 5010/ICD‐10? |
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Yes. Medical Manager is capable of handling 5010/ICD‐10 when paired with a claims clearinghouse that also complies with the mandates and submits claims in the 5010 format. |
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I was told that I “need” to upgrade Medical Manager to be ready for 5010, ICD10 and Meaningful Use. Is that true? |
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No, you can meet the 5010/ICD10 mandates as well as meet meaningful use with Medical Manager without upgrading. |
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Can I keep Medical Manager and achieve EHR meaningful use? |
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Yes, there is a pathway to achieve meaningful use by keeping Medical Manager and interfacing a certified EHR to it. This is a good strategy for practices wishing to protect their investment in Medical Manager versus replacing it with a fully‐integrated EHR and
practice management system that would likely require a sizable investment, entail a data conversion and cause the business‐users on staff to be re‐trained on the new product. |
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How do I protect my investment in Medical Manager? |
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Keep it! Years or even decades ago, you made a smart investment in the one of the then‐leading practice management systems on the market. This is a proven financial system that has performed time and again as the very heart of your practice cash flow.
So, keep it and be sure to surround it with other reliable third‐party tools to make it operate optimally. These sorts of tools include a claims clearinghouse with a variety of real‐time revenue cycle management services, a certified electronic health record (EHR),
a custom reporting and ad‐hoc analytics tool and an updated and secure infrastructure. |
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When will 5010/ICD‐10 impact our practice? |
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Use of the Version 5010 standards becomes mandatory on January 1, 2012. Revised code sets for ICD‐10 then must be in place no later than October 1, 2013. Since almost all practices utilize a clearinghouse to move their transactions between them and the
payers, the 5010 format change should be handled at the clearinghouse level and very little, if any changes should need to occur at the Practice Management System level. You will need to plan for the 10/1/2013 deadline for moving to the new ICD‐10
Standards. This may require staff training etc. within your practice. |
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What is the “meaningful use” of an electronic health record (EHR)? |
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The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 specifies three main components of Meaningful Use:
- The use of a certified EHR in a meaningful manner, such as e‐prescribing.
- The use of certified EHR technology for electronic exchange of health information to improve quality of health care.
- The use of certified EHR technology to submit clinical quality and other measures.
Simply put, "meaningful use" means providers need to show they're using certified EHR technology in ways that can be measured significantly in quality and in quantity. |
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Can I stay on Medical Manager, add a certified EHR and still qualify for the federal
incentive monies? |
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Yes, as long as you implement a certified EHR Solution and meet the meaningful use requirements you will be eligible for the $44,000 under the Medicare Incentive or the $65,000 under the Medicaid Incentive. (Note, you can only apply under one of the two programs and the monies are over a 5 year period) |
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Which EHRs will work with Medical Manager? |
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There are many “stand alone” EHR Solutions that interface with Medical Manager but it’s important to insure you select and implement one that is certified and engineered to work well with Medical Manager. Explore your options to a best‐of‐breed, certified EHR that will allow you to meet governmental regulations and take advantage of stimulus incentives. |
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Is there a way for my billing service to keep using Medical Manager and offer EHR to its clients? |
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Yes, there are options for a Billing Service using Medical Manager to offer a certified EHR Solution to their customers that connect to the Medical Manager System and create enhanced workflows. |
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What is EHR certification and why should I care about it? |
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According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), EHRs deliver benefits only when the information and the EHR are standardized and “Structured” in uniform ways, just as ATMs depend on uniformly structured data. Therefore, the “meaningful use” approach requires identification of standards for EHR systems. Certification, which has been coordinated by a national office, ensures that vendors can send and receive standardized data. This assures physicians that they are purchasing a product that will connect properly to other providers in the health system. Certification verifies that the EHR vendor meets national requirements. |
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If I choose to replace Medical Manager, what do I need to know about managing the old data and “retiring” the Medical Manager System? |
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To meet regulatory requirements, data from Medical Manager should be kept accessible for a minimum of 7‐10 years. While many practices assume that ALL of the data from Medical Manager is brought over into the new system during a conversion, this is almost never the case! To properly secure your protected health information (PHI), an archive of the health data from Medical Manager should be performed. The archival of health data typically entails data from Medical Manager being converted from its
current format to a universally‐accepted standard format (PDF), catalogued for easy access and viewed via a browser. Patient accounts are accessed by searching on name, date of birth, account number or social security number. When the patient
information is presented, the user can then categorically choose which information to view or print. After you have implemented the new electronic health record and worked down all of the accounts receivable from Medical Manager, the archive makes
data readily accessible without the need to maintain the application, its operating system or its server. It’s also easier for new employees to access old data since they don’t need to be trained on Medical Manager, but rather, just need to know how to use
a standard browser. |
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