PCM User Discussion Forum   

Prime Clinical Systems has implemented a user discussion forum for our PCM clients. The purpose of this forum is to allow discussion on topics important to our clients amongst each other as well as with the PCS staff. This service is included as part of your support contract at no additional cost.

If you are interested in using the PCM discussion forum, from www.primeclinical.com log into your client home page, click the [Discussion Forum] button at the bottom of the page, and register a user name for the discussion forum. Once your registration has been confirmed you will be allowed to view and post topics and respond to topics started by other users.

If you do not know the login and password information for your practice's client home page, please email support@primeclinical.com to obtain it.

PCS Administrative Notes

Users Meeting
in Southern California

The Southern California Users Meeting will be held October 12 and 13 at the Embassy Suites in Arcadia, CA. Please contact Marty Beteta at 626-449-1705 ext. 222 or marty@primeclinical.com for more information.

Note: The same information will be covered both days, therefore you need only register for one of the dates. 

E-mail invites will be sent out to all clients in the first part of August. Please make sure we have your updated e-mail address on file.

Client Email Notices
and Website Information

Email:

Since the last newsletter, the pertinent emails that have been sent for both Intellect and PCM clients are: "Avoid Reduction of 2012 Reimbursement" (several times), "Add 4-Digit Zip Code Extensions", and "Urgent - Steps for Adding Zip Code Extensions". 

For PCM only, the sent emails are: "PCM Does NOT Support Internet Explorer 9", "Exceptions for 2012 E-Prescribing Penalty", "Join Our Client Discussion Forum", "EHR Incentive Program Information", and "Enable Drug Interaction Warning for MU".

If you are not getting our emails, please make sure we have your current email address. Past emails may be viewed on our website -- once logged-in, click on the [Newsletters] button in the right column, and then select Client Email Notices 2011. From this point, Intellect notices may be accessed from the Intellect Client Emails option and PCM notices may be accessed through the PCM Client Emails option.

Website:

Access to a link for Medicare and 5010 is also available on  our newsletters website. Once logged-in to our main webpage, click on the [Newsletters] button in the right column, and then select Industry News. The link, titled "New EASY PRINT SOFTWARE FOR VERSION 5010" can be accessed from either the 5010 Information option OR the Medicare option.  

PCM News

Meaningful Use:
Drug Alert Interactions Enabled for Reporting Period 

The Meaningful Use Report now has the feature "Drug Alert Interactions Enabled for Reporting Period", which is enabled by default and remains enabled as long as the "Don't Prompt for RX Override Warnings ..." option is NOT checked (see screen save below). This feature is to meet Core Measure 2 requirements and it checks to see if the user had drug interactions enabled for the entire reporting period. If the user checks the option, "Don't Prompt for RX Override when warnings exist" at anytime during the period, they will not qualify for this measure. This option is located in Misc. User Defaults, under the Prescription Tab.

PCS sent an email to our clients 07/14/2011 titled "Enable Drug Interaction Warnings for MU" which gave the steps to ensure that warnings are enabled. To view this email, click here.

For additional information on the Core Measures, see: https://www.cms.gov/EHRIncentivePrograms/Downloads/EP-MU-TOC.pdf
 

Race and Ethnicity Reporting

To meet the necessary requirements for the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI),for which Prime is being certified, both the Race and Ethnicity fields are mandatory. If a patient declines to disclose his/her race and/or ethnicity, at the <Race> field select "Unknown-Declined" and leave the <Ethnicity> field blank. By completing the <Race> field as "Unknown-Declined", the Meaningful Use Report will be credited for both the <Race> and <Ethnicity> fields.

Spell Check Option  

There is a new "Spell Check" option in the word processor's toolbar (see below).

To make typing a lot faster for remote users, it is strongly recommended that PCM's TS Clients, RDP, and Dragon users disable the PCM Spell Checker and use the new "Spell Check" option after finishing the document. The PCM Spell Checker can be disabled from the User Preferences Spell Check Options.

Daily Appointment List Shows Intellect's Appointment Type Colors

The "App Tp" cells now show the color which was assigned in Intellect for the Appointment Type.
Note: This is not supported for OnSTAFF/Unify, only for Intellect/Oracle.

There is an option in Intellect's Utility/Setup/Parameter screen called "Appointment Color" which, prior to PCM version 5.5.795, has only been used by Intellect clients. Now, if it is set to '1', PCM will use the color of the original appointment type for the newly added appointment, and if it is set to '2', PCM will use the color assigned to the new appointment type. Changing the color in PCM will also change the color in Intellect.

Intellect and OnSTAFF

Intellect Meets ANSI Requirements for Generating Secondary Claims 

Intellect meets all the ANSI requirements for generating secondary claims, and is capable of billing ALL secondary claims to your clearing house.  Primary Payments must either be posted from an ANSI 835 ERA/ERN (Electronic Remittance) file OR manually entered through Payment/Open Item with the Approved, Payment and Adjust fields completed for each charge.   

If you would like to have your secondary claims automated to bill through nightly automation, please contact PCS Support. Or, if you are unsure whether you are correctly posting the primary payments, call our training department to schedule time to review those steps.  

Zip Codes Must be Updated
to Include 4-Digit Extensions

Prime Clinical is continuing to work on the 5010 testing and, at this time, we have been informed that the following information will be required for 5010 to pass the first two phases of edits of the Electronic Billing:

1. Zip Code 4-digit extensions will be required on 5010. Information regarding the extensions can be found on www.usps.com.

2. At this time, all clients must immediately begin updating their zip codes to include the 4-digit extensions in the following Intellect and Unix tables:

* Utility/Provider - All Providers
* Utility/Set Up - Clinic

Updating the zip codes on other tables, such as the Patient Demographics, is optional but suggested.

3. After updating the zip codes, verify that the zip codes were added correctly by bringing up the Provider, Clinic, or other record whose zip code was just modified. If the zip code was added correctly, the <City> and <State> fields should be filled-in and the zip code with 4-digit extension should be displayed. If the zip code was added incorrectly, the <City> and <State> fields will be blank.  

For more information on updating zip codes, refer to the email we sent July 27, 2011 by clicking here.

Industry News 

Palmetto Explains 5010 Changes

Palmetto hosted a webinar on April 27, 2011 explaining the 5010 changes. Palmetto then released an easy-to-follow .pdf of that webinar which can be accessed here.

Please note that, per Palmetto, "The information provided in this Webinar was current as of 04/26/2011. Any changes or new information superseding the information in this webinar are provided in articles with publication dates after 04/26/11 posted on our [Palmetto's] website."

Additionally, Prime Clinical's programming department has completed the first phase of the 5010 Testing and is in the second phase of the testing. We will be ready for
release in the 3rd quarter of this year.

CMS Announces National
Version 5010 Testing Day
August 24, 2011  

If you have seen notices regarding National Testing Day, don't worry, we have you covered. Instead of you having to do the testing, we are doing it for you.

Medicare Distributes $75M in Meaningful Use Incentive Payments 

On Thursday [May 26, 2011], CMS announced that more than 300 health care providers have received a total of $75 million in Medicare incentive payment for demonstrating meaningful use of electronic health records, HealthLeaders Media reports (Tocknell, HealthLeaders media, 5/27).

Read more>>

U.S. Can Learn
From Canadian ICD-10 Implementation

An article by Carl Natale from ICD10 Watch on July 26, 2011 urged the U.S. to not follow in the footsteps of Canadian healthcare professionals as they implement ICD-10. He quoted Cynthia Grant, director of Canadian consultancy Courtyard Group as saying that "productivity in Canada never bounced back to ICD-9 levels." This was due not only to all the extra codes and complexity, but also because Canada had been doing their ICD-9 medical coding on paper, Canadian authorities severely underestimated the work required to implement ICD-10 codes, and more training needed to be done.

To read more and access additional resources, click here.

Who's Who at PCS

New Employee
Southern California

Aaron Mayfield has joined the Sales and Marketing Department. Aaron has a degree in Integrative Health and Healing Leadership, and was a member of the Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine Graduate program at Minnesota College. Aaron has a diverse background in Project Management and in the implementation and training of EMR and Practice Management systems. He is bright, friendly and a great addition to the team. Aaron can be reached at ext. 263. 

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