Question
Question for Ask the Biller:
October 13, 2007
Hi Alice and Michele,
Both of you are doing a tremendous job with your newsletter and other information on your website. Being an owner of a billing company in Arizona, I don't think any other billing companies does this. Can you please spare some time to answer this question on Lytec – We have been using Lytec ever since I started my billing company in 04. We use the 2004 version and as we have grown to 10 practices, I am really unhappy with its patient statements. Specially I think it is not very good in calculating the aging buckets right and the statements are not very easy to read for patients. What have you done to come around this ? What version of Lytec do you use and are the statements any better ? I am thinking of changing the system but I like everything else about Lytec, so was wondering if I should change. How often do you bill your patients and secondary claims ?
We really appreciate your thankless service,
Thanks a lot
Shaun K
Answer
Hi Shaun,
I am not very happy with the patient statements portion of Lytec either, but we have found a few ways to make it a little better. The patient statements can be altered just like the claim forms can. In the Reports -> custom reports -> edit custom reports, you select the patient statement you want to alter. We haven't figured out a way around the aging of the bill. It is always off and we have patients call & complain about that occasionally, but what can you do. Just try to explain to them that computers ‘think’ differently! WE have done some other things though that make the statements easier to understand. We change the description of the CPT code to something they will understand. For example we bill for an eye Dr who works out of a Walmart but uses his home address for correspondence. So we coded the 92012 with a description of “Eye Exam – Walmart” instead of “Intermediate eye exam established patient blah blah blah” Another thing we did that is VERY HELPFUL. We made procedure codes to explain why they are being billed. For example, we use PR (as a procedure code) which on a patient statement prints out as “Patient Responsibility.” Another one we use is CT for “Your insurance coverage has terminated.” And COO for Please contact our office with correct insurance information. We have hundreds that we use. We have a code for everything. If the description is a long one, we just use 2 or 3 codes to “spell it out for them” We find this greatly decreases the phone calls we receive regarding bills.
We use Lytec 2007. We are billing for over 50 providers and with the electronics we have to keep upgrading even though I am against updating yearly. We upgrade every other year.
Thanks for your support!
Michele