While MedLook provides a number of useful reports it is not uncommon to find a need for something MedLook does not directly provide.  However, we have accounted for this by allowing you to simply dump your data into a CSV (comma delimited) data file for easy use in Microsoft Excel.  For instance, perhaps you need to know how many patients between 30 and 40 years of age have visited the office for a particular service during a certain time period. The possibility of report requirements is amazing. By dumping the data into a CSV file you can easily generate virtually any report in a nice format.

The first thing is to determine what data to dump. Generally you will want to output services and payments. You can do this using several different “reports” under that patient list. The DOS [YTD/Last Year] Report, the Transactions [YTD/Last Year], and several others allow you to generate just such a file.  Click on the appropriate listing and then use File Save Display To File. If you select to automatically open the file then either Excel (Office) or Calc (Open Office) will automatically start up; otherwise double click the file and open it (or open your application and then load the file).

In this article we assume you will be using Excel. Rather than reproducing how to manipulate your data in Excel we will simply provide a link to a very useful website that has a great tutorial to demonstrate how to use Pivot Tables. Click on the link below and follow the tutorial.  Then return to your data and give it a try.

 http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/13336/working-with-pivottables-in-excel/

Another excellent source is to search the internet for “excel pivot table video tutorial” and watch some of the available video tutorials. In just a few minutes you’ll find you can create some really nice, very useful reports without doing a lot of redundant, tiresome work.

Generating reports like this requires two things.

1. Being able to get the right data out of MedLook and into a suitable file format.

2. The right software (Excel or Calc) to create custom reports via Pivot Tables.

Of course, a little know-how and ingenuity are necessary as well.

The chart number is a 20-digit field that can contain any printable characters.  The patient account number is really an internal number we use to keep everything relative to the patient grouped together.  The chart number is for external reference. The patient account number must be numeric whereas the chart number can be any combination of printable characters.

On the Edit Patient dialog the chart number will be automatically generated to match the account number. Once the user passes through the chart number field (with the mouse or tab) the chart number will no longer change for the patient at hand. It assumes you have validated the chart number as acceptable and not to be changed.

To help facilitate rapid, meaningful entry of a chart number we have implemented two very nice features: the chart # mask and the chart # prefix. Here’s how each works.

The Chart # Prefix is any set of printable characters that will be applied as a prefix to your Chart #.  The prefix is stored per database.  The default prefix is blank (empty). Once the field is entered it will be the default for each database unless a new value is entered. Each database can have it’s own prefix (and mask).

The Chart # Mask is a used to automatically generate a Chart # for a new patient. Once you have entered the Chart # field on the Edit Patient dialog it will no longer automatically change.  The Chart # Mask can is comprised of the letters FMLs and the number 0. Here’s what each means.

Wherever the letter F appears the next leftmost letter from the first name is used.  So FFF and the name JAMES would give JAM.

Using the letter M does the same for the middle name, L for the last name, and s for the SSN.

Finally a combination of 0’s can be used to 0 fill a number.  So 000 could create 001, or 002, 010, etc., MedLook will continue to increase the number portion of the mask until it finds a unique chart number or reaches all 9’s.

For illustration, if we use Harry S Truman and a mask of LLLFM000 we would have TRUHS001 (or 002, etc.). Or if we had a mask of FMLLL000 we might have HSTRU001.

You can do all sorts of crazy things with the mask but use it wisely to help you quickly and uniquely identify patients in a way meaningful to you.

Revision: 04/14/2010  ML 3.0.154

You can now use any number, not just 0, for the numeric mask.  This provides the capability of seeding the start number. For instance, 000 would start at 000.  Using 123 would start at 123.  Most people will want to use 000 or 001 (starting at 0 or 1).

The name mask has been enhanced.  If using HENRY T FORD with a mask of LLLLLL001 we would generate FORDHE001. The last name will be built using the last+first+mi and then using the mask we generate the name as shown.  The same holds for the first name with the name being constructed as first+mi+last.  Spaces are automatically removed.

MedLook has a built-in backup system.  By default it is enabled for every user.  Obviously the more backups you have the greater the likelihood you can restore to a reasonably good, recent backup.  In MedLook, the backup works daily and weekly and performs the backup upon startup.  It can also be initiated from the Start menu. Lastly, it can be activated by using the scheduler. 

The MedLook backup must first make a copy of the database before it makes the actual backup file.  Creating the copy often takes one or two times as long as actually making the backup. In addition, the Daily and Weekly backups prohibit any further activity from the user until the backup completes.  On small databases this backup procedure works fine and takes very little time. On a networked database with more data it can take over 10 minutes, maybe even 20 if the network is busy.

Even if you make your backups, a real concern is where to keep them?  By all means you need to keep a current backup on an external device.  If you have a power surge everything connected to the computer could be fried and you would possibly lose of your all backups.  That would be catastrophic.  At the very least you should be making a backup copy to an external hard drive (iPod, USB thumb drive, etc.) and disconnecting it from your network after completing the backup.

There is a better option though - on-line backups. There are a number of companies that offer this service.  Beware, they are not all equal. Some may or may not be HIPAA compliant.  They may make your backup easily enough but the restore process may be very painful (taking days, not minutes).  The fees also vary widely.

In our research we think we have found a very good solution in Offsite Computer Backup. The interface is excellent and can be managed from any internet connection or from the local computer itself. File restoration is also very easy.  The backup runs in the background and you won’t notice any performance degradation.  You can backup local drives, networked drives, and more.  You can schedule daily backups, multiple backups per day, and even do a continuous backup minimizing the amount of data (i.e. TIME) you can afford to lose.

There are two options with fees starting at $12/month (single computer, 6GB) or $20/month (multiple computers, 10GB).  We think both of these are a great value for the medical office. If you’ve ever lost your data you know that these modest fees are nothing in comparison to starting over.  Rest at ease - use an offsite backup service and know that if your office or home burns to the ground that your computer data (i.e. billing data and more) is safe and secure ready for you to access from another portal.

If $12/month is out of your price range (that’s one nice lunch a month), we are considering a $5 option which we administer and will only allow for your MedLook databases to be backed up and restoration may be at a cost.  Even so, your data is safe and IF you need to recover you don’t pay for that option until you actually need it. Hopefully you will never need to recover from a catastrophic event - but be prepared! This is only a consideration - we think any business should be able to afford the $12/month option.

Backups, backups, backups - make them often.  Save them offsite.  Be prepared for the worst and rest at ease knowing your data is safe and secure if you ever need to restore it.

In Batch Insurance Billing a batch of claims can be quickly generated for Unsubmitted claims (the mode you would normally use), for claims by date of entry (DOE), or for claims by date of service (DOS).  However, you can also easily rebill a batch of claims that have been marked as being submitted on a specific date. 

There are a number of reasons this might be useful.  I first encountered the need for this after a batch was generated using the Unsubmitted option and the claim file was NOT saved.  If the Save Reprint option had been used the Reprint could have been used. However, we don’t even need this option.  Using the SQL filter we can retrieve all claims marked as submitted for a given date.  Simply enter “;PostFile.Sub_date1={3/22/2010}” (excluding the double quotes, but using the semi-colon) in the SQL field for March 22, 2010.

You might wonder how you would possibly know to do this.  The answer is you simply wouldn’t know. You’d have to ask us for a little help.  We’re hoping to replace the SQL Filter with a complete dialog in MedLook 4.0.

There are a lot of little commands possible but not readily apparent within MedLook.  If you are not sure if MedLook supports a certain command, please ask. Be sure to look under the Tools menu and browse through all of the dialogs.  There are a number of very handy utilities in the menu system.

Have you ever wondered what your internet speed really is? You probably know what you are paying for but are you getting what you are paying for? I’ve used a number of different websites to test our connection speed.  Here’s a really simple and pretty reliable site.

http://speedtest.net/

Give it a try.

This is just a quick note regarding Windows 7 (W7) installations. I had posted a couple of notes regarding the installation of MedLook on W7.  A few customers had problems with the installation (many more had no problems). 

After wrestling (as in mud wrestling, it wasn’t fun) with a couple of the problem installations I decided to do a little digging.  It turns out my installation packaging software had an update just for W7. Apparently there is some sort of manifest file that helps with W7 installations.  After re-building the setup program with the new software I have not encountered a single W7 installation problem. This doesn’t mean there won’t be another problem, but hopefully nearly all such W7 installation problems have been resolved.

The next release of MedLook 3.0 is just a few short days away. There is a fantastic update to the patient statements that we have all long waited for.

Trivia: How long did the 100 Years War Last?

The last trivia question was: What do Vatican City, Haiti, Costa Rica, and Grenada have in common? 

The answer is:  They do not have any military.

The past six to eight months has seen our website undergo a major transformation.  We have put a lot of effort into this redesign and continue to make changes to make our site more attractive to new users and functional for existing users seeking assistance.  A number of you have already taken advantage of the ease of connecting for remote assistance via our new Chat system.  It’s really the same as we had before but no longer requires a PIN number.  We hope you like it and continue to use it with discretion.

We currently have a section entitled “Who Uses MedLook?” available for our users.  This section benefits all users by providing a 24×7 presence that is more likely to be listed in a web search than your own corporate page.  Clients may be searching for a billing service, billing software, etc., and arrive on our site and peruse the “Who Uses MedLook?” section and find your listing.  If you would like to be included in this listing send us an email containing your business name, a short description of your services and what makes your business attractive, along with your contact information (phone, email, website).

If you are an end provider this may not be of any net benefit to you but we would be more than glad to list your company on our site.  We believe “Who Uses MedLook?” provides a much more reliable source of reference than a Testimonial listing. 

Trivia Question:  What do Vatican City, Haiti, Costa Rica, and Grenada have in common?

The answer will be posted in the next blog entry.

In some situations, such as in a health clinic, some services are repeated over and over for a large number of patients who don’t need to be registered as patients.  For instance, if you are providing some sort of vaccination, etc., each patient does not need to be registered as a patient.  In addition, the guarantor may be the local court, etc.  For billing, the important issue is that the proper guarantor/payee is identified and all services rendered are billed and properly identified.  A couple of clients have come up with a clever method of doing this in MedLook that I thought worth sharing.

Create a “patient” for the payee (e.g. Probate Court).  When entering services on the Charge tab for each new service enter the “patient” name (Jeff Fagerman, etc.) in the comment field and save the charge. When doing Patient Billing be sure to check Comments in the Items to Include.  Below is an example of such a statement: