Synergistic Update
December 2012
Welcome to Synergistic Update. This newsletter is our vehicle to provide information about SOS Software, events in the healthcare industry, links to important regulatory information, and notes about recent blog posts. Please let us know what issues you would like to hear about. And remember, your feedback is welcome at any time!
In this issue:
SOS
Celebrates 20+ Year Customers
Electronic Claims Module Price Rollback through December 21, 2012
Install Your Updates: 8 Important Reasons to do those Updates!
SOS staff profile: Kathy Peres, Vice President
New Feature: Customer Spotlight – Gainesville Counseling and Development Center
Recent blog articles available:
Caring for the Caregiver: 5 Self-care Tips, May 21, 2012
Secondary Insurance and Medicare, June 27, 2012
Habits, Habits, Habits: How do they affect your life?, July 13, 2012
Global Warming Revisited, July 23, 2012
APA Convention in Orlando: Customers, colleagues, and more, August 8, 2012
Psychiatric CPT Codes Changing in 2013, August 15, 2012
CMS: Are you familiar with their newsletters and eLists?, August 20, 2012
Ongoing HIPAA Care: What is your plan?, September 5, 2012
New IOM Report: Best care at lower cost, September 19, 2012
Energy at Work: What recharges you?, September 24, 2012
Psychiatry CPT Codes for 2013, October 4, 2012
Integrated Medical and Mental Health Care, October 19, 2012
PHI Thieves Are Usually After Financial Information, October 29, 2012
Will Your Organization Weather a Storm…or Other Catastrophe?, November 7, 2012
Resources on Post-Storm Trauma, CPT Codes, Veterans’ Services and More, November 14, 2012
Caregiving and Caregivers, November 27, 2012
Affordable Healthcare: How to make it work, December 4, 2012
Mobile Data Security a Big Concern, December 13, 2012
Add Newtown, CT to the Very Sad List, December 18, 2012
SOS Celebrates 20 Year
Customers
In our last newsletter, we mentioned our 27th anniversary as a business. We decided that we would like to recognize and celebrate our long term customers, especially those who have maintained a Support/Update Plan since we instituted them in 1995. When we started counting, we were pleasantly surprised. Among our customers who have current support agreements, almost one-third have been using our software for twenty or more years. And thirty percent of those have had continuous support agreements in place since the onset! We tried to be as comprehensive in our review of our customers as possible. If we missed you, please let us know. If you did not have a current support agreement this Spring, you might not have been included.
We decided to offer a special place of honor on our website to long-time customers. You can see our 20+ Year Customers who opted to include their information on our site. Any of you who received an invitation but never sent us your information are still invited to participate. As time passes and more folks come into the 20 year time frame, we will be delighted to include them! Just contact me at Kathy@sosoft.com.
The big news at this moment is the change in psychotherapy-related CPT codes, effective January 1, 2013. If you have been reading the SOS blog and the SOS User Group, you know there has been a lot of scurrying around since August in an attempt to determine just what the changes in procedure codes will mean for various organizations. If you are not already a member of the SOS User Group, you really should join. A number of our members have posted links to documents available at a variety of web sites. The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry has developed excellent training modules and a crosswalk.
For Medicare and Medicaid claims, you must use the new coding scheme for all services provided after December 31, 2012. You will retain the old codes so you can re-file any 2012 claims and add new codes for the 2013 requirements. It will be necessary for you to check directly with your other payers and panels about what they will require. It is our expectation that all payers will move to the new codes, but some may take longer than others to do so. If you have not already heard from your primary payers, please check directly with their provider relations departments.
We have attended webinars done by The National Council and by Florida Psychological Association. You should take advantage of some of the excellent training resources available on various web sites (aPa, APA, National Council, American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry).
If your organization does no prescribing, this will be a quick and easy addition of codes for you. All of the psychotherapy codes [except Family Psychotherapy (90846, 90847, and 90849) and Group Psychotherapy (90853)] have been deleted and replaced with new codes. If you have lots of Carrier Specific entries for one or more of the services that is changing, you may want to take advantage of a new Copy this Service feature that we are adding to SOS Office Manager, version 2013.01. This will be available the third week of December and you will receive email notification if you are part of the SOS eNewsletter list.
PLEASE
NOTE: If you have prescribers in
your organization, your billing coders will need to learn about
Evaluation/Management (E/M) codes if you do not already use them.
Please see
the links above to learn more about the E/M codes.
Seth has created documentation that explains how to add new Service codes to your SOS software, how to use the Copy this Service feature, and how to use Macros. (If you cannot follow the link above, you can locate the document on the SOS website at http://www.sosoft.com > Support > Doc Library 2010. The document is titled Entering Charges Using 2013 CPT Codes.) As always, you will need to determine which codes most accurately reflect the services you provide. Only the provider and the billing coder can decide which codes are appropriate to use.
Electronic
Claims Module Price Rollback through
December 21, 2012
If any of you have been considering purchasing our electronic claims module for filing claims through our clearinghouse partner, Emdeon, that module is on sale. We have rolled the price back to pre-2006 levels to give you the opportunity to get started. This offer expires December 21, 2012, so MailTo:Trish@sosoft.com to initiate your order or call her at 352-242-9100, x 9004.
Why
You Should Always Install Updates to Your SOS
Software
with
expert input from Steve Tessier
A few weeks ago, we were discussing updates to our products during a staff meeting. We all agreed that some of our customers avoid installing updates for a variety of reasons. Some folks are not confident making changes to their computers; others have experienced difficulties in the past when they have updated; others subscribe to the ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ philosophy. Unfortunately, not installing updates can cause a variety of issues for you, so we would like to encourage all our users who have current support agreements to keep current on their updates. Below are the reasons Steve, one of our Software Developers, came up with to always install your SOS updates.
Whenever we become aware of a security issue with any of the development tools we utilize, we make changes to our software to counteract those issues. Privacy and security of your data are your responsibility under HIPAA. Failure to install an update that plugs such a hole might well be considered disregard of your responsibilities by the Office of Civil Rights, enforcers of HIPAA.
Eliminate
Bugs.
Modern software is very complex. There are thousands of lines of code
written
to do your daily tasks. Bugs are inevitable. Regular release patches
and
updates correct the bugs that have been brought to our attention by any
of our
users. By updating the software, you eliminate potential errors and
other
future problems that might have been caused by the bug.
Improve
Security.
Software may have weak points that can be exploited by unscrupulous
hackers to
attack your computer. Updates usually improve the security aspect of
the
software by removing these vulnerabilities. Additionally, you should
always
update your operating system when such updates are released. Operating
system
weaknesses are frequently security-related and could cause a HIPAA
violation.
SOS updates are the only way to get the latest versions of any changes
made to
SOS security features.
Add
Features.
Throughout the lifecycle of a software product, market demand drives
the
inclusion of added features to facilitate the use of the software. We
add new
features regularly, some small, some significant. Updating your
software
ensures that you benefit from these improvements.
Fading
Technical Support capability.
While SOS has not done this to date, some software companies insist
that you
update to the most recent version of their software before they will
even
provide support for you. That is because the older a software release
gets, the
smaller the likelihood that technical support representatives will be
able to
help you. Since resources are limited on the technical support
machines, only
the most current version of the software is maintained. While our reps
are
likely to remember some things in older versions of the software, it
will not
be possible for them to debug something for you since they will not
have the
old version of the software available. Running an old version increases
the
time it takes for support reps to solve a problem. In order to ensure
availability of technical support, updating your software is essential.
Incompatibility
with Newer Software from other vendors like
Sybase.
SOS Software relies on the products of other software companies;
Microsoft and
Sybase are two of these. With the fast pace of technology advancement,
older
versions of SOS software products may not function correctly or
efficiently
with newer software, whereas updated versions keep pace with technology
changes.
SOS
Updates include Sybase database upgrades.
The only way for you to obtain upgrades to the Sybase database that
stores and
manages all your data is to install your SOS updates. If you fall too
far
behind in your updates and there have been multiple upgrades of the
Sybase
database, we may need to charge you to do your upgrade for you since
data
conversion will be necessary.
Meet
legal requirements.
The CMS forms on which you file claims to insurance carriers are
regulated by
law. If you file electronic claims, the format of those claims and the
codes
used in them are controlled by specific legal requirements. Failure to
update
your software may keep you from meeting those legal mandates.
If you have a current Support/Update Plan with SOS Software, you have a right to current updates. Please install them so you get benefit of new features and can obtain the most effective technical support we can provide.
SOS Staff Profile: Kathy Peres, Vice President
We decided that it
might be fun for you our customers to know a bit more about those of us
who
work here at SOS. After all, you talk to us often, but many of you have
never
met any of us. Some of our staff were a bit self-conscious about
participating,
so we decided to draw numbers to make it easier. As these things
happen, #1 and
#2 were drawn by Seth Krieger and Kathy Peres, co-owners of Synergistic
Office
Solutions, Inc. Seth was profiled in the last newsletter. Here are
Kathy’s
answers to the same questions.
How long have you
worked at SOS?
I have one of the least clear answers to this question of any SOS
employee. As
a co-owner of SOS, I have been involved since 1985 when we first
incorporated.
Back then, I was responsible for bookkeeping and advertising, while
still doing
my private practice of Psychology. During those first eight years, I
did a
full-time practice and moonlighted at SOS. In 1993, we decided to
re-locate
from South Florida to Central Florida. I took the opportunity to retire
from
practice and to begin work at SOS full-time.
How would you describe your role at SOS?
While my title is Vice President, I think of myself primarily as communicator and translator. I make sure we talk with one another and with you and try to keep us all on the same page. I am responsible for day-to-day business operations and customer service at SOS. I supervise the Sales, Marketing and Administrative staff. I do the bookkeeping, make sure certain aspects of the web site are kept updated, design and implement the marketing strategies and sales campaigns, write our blog (SOS-at-large) and sometimes manage to publish a newsletter. Oh yes, one last thing…the voice on our few training videos is mine.
How
do you prefer to spend your time when you are not
working?
I love to read (fiction and non), to garden, to ride our tandem bicycle, to cook, and to read about gardening and cooking. I am committed to practicing Yoga including asanas, yoga nidra and meditation. I thoroughly enjoy watching the birds in my garden and pondering the weather changes on our small lake. I am an avid recycler and environmentalist. And, I am currently primary caregiver to my 92 year old mother who lives with us.
What else would you like our customers to know about you?
I love four-legged creatures, especially cats, and cannot imagine not having animal companions. Fortunately, my husband Seth shares this devotion. I also thoroughly enjoy traveling, although I am neither an adventure traveler nor a cross-country cyclist! A week riding our tandem bicycle in France or Austria (or Italy at some time in the future) with someone else hauling our luggage from place to place is my idea of a good vacation. The photo above was taken at the Lavender Museum in the village of Coustellet, near Bonnieux and Gordes in the Provence region of France.
New
Feature: SOS Customer Spotlight
Gainesville Counseling
and Development Center
2831-F NW 41st Street
Gainesville, FL 32606
http://www.gcdc-fl.com
SOS 20+ Year Customer Page
For
how long have you been providing services to your
community?
Since 1985.
How
many staff members are involved in your organization?
What are their credentials?
We have one office manager, four psychotherapists and one psychiatrist.
What
areas of specialization do you provide to your
community?
As can be seen on our website we offer a multitude of specialties where
we
treat anxiety, depression, divorce issues, grief support, sexual trauma
recovery, and addiction recovery to name a very few. Our associates
work with
adults of all ages as well as children and adolescents.
What
is your mission statement? How do you want your
community to see you?
Gainesville Counseling and Development Center is home to a unique blend
of
highly qualified professionals who each maintain their own independent
practices. The variety of specializations available meets the
diverse
needs of our community. Each professional has many years of
training and
experience, is a Florida licensed mental health provider, and is an
active
member of national, state, and/or local professional organizations.
What would you like to share with the SOS community of professionals who use our software? Please include any unique things about your organization, any interesting ways you use our software, what your special place within your community is, how you are like/different from other practices/organizations, or anything else you would like to share.
The convenience of having in house billing using the SOS software has been something that keeps our office running efficiently. Our office manager is able to easily find any information that the practitioners and/or our clients need. It also helps us be more easily compliant with HIPAA standards since no information has to leave our office. Having all of our records up to date and immediately accessible is a unique quality of our practice compared to others in our community. The tech support offered by SOS is excellent and our office manager never has difficulty getting her questions answered quickly. We are kept informed by SOS about any changes in billing requirements and rules and regulations.
_____________________________
We
would
like to extend our
Holiday Greetings
to all our SOS customers and friends.
We wish you a joyful season
and look forward to
continuing our work together in 2013!