Dear valued client:

It is a wonderful time to be part of the AdvancedMD family. As your practice adapts to deliver better patient care, remain compliant and stay ahead of competition, we adapt with you.

We are excited as we change hands from ADP to Marlin Equity Partners. Marlin has a fascinating success story, with the stability of more than $3 billion in capital under management, a vast network and experience in healthcare, and allows us to operate with more independence. This independence allows us to be more flexible, more innovative and to better able to satisfy the growing needs of the independent practices we serve. We are heavily focused on delivering exciting new innovations that help you improve care and your bottom line.

You have most likely noticed we unveiled new branding that reflects our new status and strengthened conviction as a standalone company. The response from many of you has been overwhelmingly favorable, especially of the hummingbird logo and tagline, Freedom to practice.

Our hummingbird logo represents agility, adaptability, proactiveness, and most importantly, freedom. Our new AdvancedMD tagline ‘Freedom to Practice’ represents our relentless focus on alleviating compliance challenges, streamlining workflow within your independent practice and ensuring your practice receives the very best electronic health record, practice management and patient relationship management software, as well as big data reporting and business intelligence tools, to automate and optimize workflow in all areas of your independent practice.

Welcome to the new AdvancedMD. With this change, comes a renewed effort to make AdvancedMD even better for your independent practice. I invite you to share this newsletter with everyone in your practice. We appreciate your continued support and business.

Raul Villar

Innovation update from product & engineering

Meet your client services team

The client services team takes great pride in providing professional and responsive support to everyone in your practice to ensure an exceptional experience. We realize your practice relies on AdvancedMD software to run your office, so no matter your position or need, we want to ensure you have the right tools to succeed.

Client services has a breadth of experience working with healthcare-related software issues. Using sophisticated routing technology, calls are directed to the person with the necessary skills to assist you. We realize we’re not perfect, however, we continually strive to do our best to help your independent practice run more efficiently.

AdvancedMD continues to implement new technologies to help your practice become more efficient. As such, we are in the process of implementing a new client portal to make it easier and quicker for you to obtain answers to your questions, enhancing your experience with client services. Stay tuned for more information about your new client portal.

Meet additional members of your client services team:

Vilare Michials
Medical Billing Client Services Supervisor

Vilare Michials has been with AdvancedMD since 2011. She started in tier 1 support assisting independent practices and billing offices with their software, troubleshooting errors and educating clients on functionality. Vilare transferred to medical billing services in 2013 and quickly moved into the role of a tier 2 support analyst. Vilare was promoted to the role of supervisor in 2014 and now manages the MBS client and patient services department.

Prior to AdvancedMD, Vilare worked for 14 years providing healthcare-related technical support and software education. In addition, her previous and diverse career includes marketing, convention planning, office administration and banking. Vilare has two children and a dog that her personal life revolves around. Her son was recently married in September, while her daughter has special needs and attends a Learning Center during the day, then meets up with Mom after work to ‘paint the town’. Together they enjoy theater, games, sports, movies, family gatherings and downtime at home.

Vilare thoroughly enjoys her role in MBS support. She especially enjoys working with her team members, the leadership and other MBS specialist teams. A quote that motivates her daily is “Trials, tribulations and afflictions are mandatory; misery is optional.” Vilare says life is too short not to enjoy what you do with your time. Her team focuses daily on positive outcomes with a cheerful disposition and a smile, providing stellar service in all they do. Vilare enjoys assisting her team members with growth opportunities, achieving positive outcomes with internal and external clientele and educating clients to become more proficient and knowledgeable within the software. Vilare is a people person who works hard to achieve successful outcomes with a can-do attitude.

Rheana Staats
Client Services Tier 2 Support

Rheana has been with AdvancedMD since 2012. She works on the problem resolution team where she performs in-depth troubleshooting, and when needed, writes the issues that then go to the development team to correct. Rheana realizes that smaller, independent practices don’t have large IT departments to resolve software issues. Being extremely detail-oriented, Rheana enjoys working with clients to resolve any issues as quickly as possible and troubleshooting issues as they arise. She also enjoys learning about the new products and features that AdvancedMD continually offers and studying about the healthcare industry.

Rheana enjoys playing softball, soccer, flag football, running and spending time with her family: Ryan, Willie (6) and her two dogs.

Patty Colello
Client Services Tier 2 Support

Patty has worked at AdvancedMD since January 2010. She was part of the PracticeOne acquisition where she worked for five years. Patty started in tier 1 support, moved to tier 2 for a short time, then moved into the key accounts support group about four years ago. AdvancedMD is the third practice management software company she has worked.

Software support has been her primary position for the past 25 years, with a few changes in between. For two years, she worked in a group practice helping patients who participated in clinical trials. She has supported auto dealership accounting software, treasury financial software and phone system software. Patty’s major in college was Computer Information Systems. She took several programming classes, which helps her explain why the system works the way it does.

Patty enjoys working with her independent practice clients, especially troubleshooting issues. She strives to be extremely thorough and accurate, realizing the clients don’t have the time to call back for the same issue.

Patty has been married to Jason since 1991 and has two cats. They live 20 miles outside of Los Angeles, closer to Malibu. Her hobbies include home improvement projects, baking treats, sewing and listening to music.

Beth Linker
Client Services Tier 1 Support

Beth has been part of the tier 1 support team since 2012 and strives to develop a trusting, professional and personal relationship with each client. She feels it’s easier to get to know the clients since they are smaller medical practices. She enjoys showing them the functionality of new features and products and especially enjoys helping clients meet their meaningful use goals. Beth describes her position as a voice of the customer, by bringing your comments to the forefront of AdvancedMD.

With the rollout of ICD-10, this past month has been amazing for Beth. She liked seeing all AdvancedMD departments work together to ensure a seamless transition while receiving stellar customer service.

Beth is a very proud mom, with three boys, two grandchildren, two dogs and a cat. She loves yard work, and thanks to her father, she installed an entire working sprinkler system! Beth also enjoys doing service projects for charitable organizations around the world. Just this year she traveled to the Philippines.

A message from your implementation team

Jessica Kojima
Vice President, Implementation ServicesTransitioning to an electronic health record system is never easy. If you are moving from paper charts or from another system, transitioning is always a challenge. This process can be disruptive for a practice, so we have worked with our clients that have implemented AdvancedEHR to identify ways to make the adoption process more efficient and less painful.We have taken a deep dive into the best practices and leveraged industry standards to minimize the configuration efforts. By using predesigned templates, you can focus your time on adapting to a new electronic workflow, instead of spending countless hours worrying about setting up the system. This allows your practice to see the benefits and efficiencies our EHR system can provide.To provide the best possible implementation experience, we are constantly updating and monitoring our online help files. These files were most searched by AdvancedPM AdvancedEHR customers during the month of October.

Top 5 Practice Management help file searches:

1. ICD-10 transition
2. Collections
3. CMS paper claims
4. Integrated fax
5. Patient portal

Top 5 EHR help file searches:

1. Note templates
2. Lab orders
3. Immunizations
4. Messages
5. Review bin

To access these and other help files, press F1 in the AdvancedPM and EHR, or use the Search option in the upper right corner.

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A message from AdvancedRCM

Our medical billing support teams are professionally equipped to provide front-line support for both you and your patients. Our associates are trained to handle your software and billing questions as well as assist your patients with questions regarding their balances, updating their demographics and answer questions regarding the processing of their insurance claims.

Over the past several months, our medical billing support teams have worked hard to improve the online case submission and phone response times. This has significantly reduced the time you and your patients have had to wait for your questions or issues to be answered. Our goal is first-call resolution, while striving to personalize the support we provide on a daily basis.

Our patient call center team and client services team work together to achieve common goals and assist each other with a team-oriented spirit. In addition, we regularly work alongside AdvancedMD support services and other medical billing departments to create a positive and seamless client experience. The environment within our teams is truly built upon trust and teamwork.

ICD-10 success

It’s hard to believe the ICD-10 deadline has already passed. Hopefully, you have made all the necessary adjustments to ensure a successful ICD-10 transition. One key step you may not have thought about is how to best track your ICD-10 success, so we have put together a short list of the top five ideas and reports that will help you monitor and track your success.

1. Denials. This is the most important piece of your RCM and we have made it easier than ever to monitor by introducing the Client Action Worklist, found in the Collection Module (third orange icon). Visits presented on this list require your immediate attention to ensure proper follow-up is performed and timely reimbursement from your carriers. This new method of tracking your denials is another example of how the MBS team strives to be more transparent and collaborate more efficiently with you, our valued partners. The Client Action Worklist has replaced tasks and/or messaging between our AdvancedRCM team and your office staff, effective November 2. The Collection Module and Client Action Worklist have contributed to lower ICD-10 denial rates.

2. Claims efficiency. We recommend you compare your previous metrics with current metrics after October 1. You can find this information in two places:
Lower right corner of your AdvancedMD dashboard > Click on Claims Efficiency Reports > Billing > Elapsed Time: Date of Service to Billed

3. Carrier AR report.
Reports > Carrier > Carrier AR Detail or Summary

4. Reimbursement analysis.
Reports > Financial Totals > Reimbursement Analysis Detail or Summary

5. AdvancedInsight reporting. Set up a basic template with your four main KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Monitor this template weekly, monthly and quarterly

• RVU – Relative Value Unit
• RPE – Revenue Per Encounter
• DAR – Days In AR
• GCR – Gross Collection Ratio

We look forward to hearing your ICD-10 success stories in the months to come. Please contact our client services department at (888) 522-1986 for any assistance.
Your AdvancedRCM team
Learn more about our RCM services & get a free price quote.

Product roadmap: what’s on the horizon?

AdvancedEPCS (eRx for controlled substances) is currently being beta tested. We’ll soon announce more information once the product is available.

AdvancedPatient. Our patient relationship management suite gives our customers support for user-customizable patient forms and consent forms, allowing multiple workflow options for your practice. Patients can securely read, edit, and sign personal information and documents that are automatically added to their chart. Selection of multiple forms ensures that the patient will get all of the necessary patient forms to fill out for the given scheduled visit. We’ll soon announce enhancements to the AdvancedPatient kiosk and patient forms.

Published EHR API. Whether you need to extend your capabilities with a third-party integration or build your own, our robust XML-based API allows you to connect with alternative EMR’s, appointment reminder systems, web portals and a host of other value-add products.

ODBC. By utilizing a local warehouse of your AdvancedMD data, you can create detailed reporting for a specific provider, manage your entire business and integrate with accounting and reporting packages for a complete view of your practice.

Over the coming months, we’ll announce more products and enhancements for increased mobility within your office, by utilizing the latest full point-of-care EHR technology and creating patient engagement tools to gain efficiency, reduce cost and create indefinite patient loyalty. Additionally, we’re working on state-of-the-art telemedicine services, AdvancedMD software for additional browsers and additional Marketplace partnerships. Learn more about these products.

Announcing the video contest winners

The AdvancedMD video contest was created to help our independent medical practices and medical billing service clients learn how your peers overcome the complex issues they’ve encountered and how AdvancedMD helped them navigate the issues to stay independent and profitable. A special thanks goes out to the clients that submitted videos. The voting was close. We were excited by the quality and quantity of submitted videos.

Best practices with AdvancedMD

ICD-10 Implementation

We are pleased to announce the transition to ICD-10 has gone extremely well for AdvancedMD clients. One client even received their first reimbursement within 5 days!

Members of the AdvancedMD ICD-10 Posse sat among our client services team for the first week to lend additional support as our clients called with questions. Support calls were much lower than expected, which is a testament on how prepared our clients and the AdvancedMD associates were for the big day. The majority of calls we received were questions around charge slips, dual coding and the code sets on the claims. Many claims containing ICD-10 codes were successfully produced. We also saw several new and valid ICD-10 claims edits just as we had hoped.

These quotes are proof the AdvancedMD clients enjoyed a smooth transition to ICD-10. We appreciate our wonderful clients who have taken time out of their hectic day to say such wonderful things.

“Your ICD-10 Housekeeping webinar was dead-on and to the point. It was the best webinar I have ever taken. I can’t believe the effort and workload this project created and for the length of time it took to provide the necessary information to the medical field. I hope everyone involved is feeling proud and relieved today for the excellent job well done.”

“I just have to say what a fantastic job you all have done in helping us with the ICD-10 implementation. So far, so good. We have posted a few charges already using the new codes. Thank you again for all the webinar’s and advice etc.”

“Thanks very much to the entire ICD-10 Posse and AdvancedMD team for making the transition just about painless! Hopefully, the carriers will return reimbursement as simply.”

Debut at MGMA 2015 annual conference

We had a wonderful time debuting physician performance benchmarking and data interoperable technologies at MGMA 2015. Our new booth boldly shows our new branding, which was a big hit. Thank you to our clients and partners who stopped by.

Meaningful Use updates

• CMS recently published a final rule that specifies criteria that eligible professionals (EPs) must meet in order to participate in the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs.
• The EHR Incentive Programs in 2015 through 2017 (Modified Stage 2) reflect changes to the objectives and measures of Stages 1 and 2 to align with Stage 3, which focuses on the advanced use of EHRs.
• Starting in 2015, all providers will be required to attest to a single set of ten objectives and nine clinical quality measures.

ActiveX

The AdvancedPM and AdvancedEHR applications use ActiveX controls to add the necessary functionality to Internet Explorer. Because ActiveX controls run on your computer they are blocked by default. The following instructions will walk you through setting up Internet Explorer so it only allows AdvancedMD ActiveX controls to install.

Password resets

Our support team has several safeguards and policies in place to protect your information and the information of your clients. The first of these safeguards include password resets.

Recorded webinars

AdvancedScheduling enhancements

We’ve made four enhancements to provide additional flexibility and control in your scheduling workflow.

60-second expert series best practices

• Learn how AdvancedInsight helps you understand how much your practice collects per Total RVU to gain a real-time benchmark of your revenue cycle performance.
• See how AdvancedInsight lets you find out how, when and where to grow your practice.

New Video Training Library videos

• AdvancedInsight: Experience the new look and feel, along with new CBO reporting distribution.
• AdvancedPatient: An introduction to patient relationship management for AdvancedPM, using the admin kiosk, patient kiosk and patient portal. Access both videos.

Latest eBooks

• 5 Key strategies to reduce financial risk
• Creating a 5 star service
• Tips to a successful approach to EHR implementation

Marketplace spotlight

Take advantage of the 12-month ICD-10 implementation grace period to get organized with a high-performance AdvancedMD partner.