AS/PC Software
Patient and Insurance Billing and Database
Designed with your practice in mind,
our AS/PC® Patient Accounting and Practice Management System
balances powerful functionalist, ease of use, and flexibility in an affordable solution.
- Optimized for Microsoft Windows! AS/PC® is specifically designed to take advantage of many features that are part of Microsoft's Windows Operating Systems. AS/PC® runs on Windows 2K and XP Pro - in other words; the best of the current Microsoft Windows operating systems. Super fast performance and packed with features, AS/PC® is an excellent choice for practices that want the power of the best software systems while maintaining a price that today's doctors will find more reasonable. A fully operational 60 Day Trial is available for FREE download from DBC's Web Site!
- Microsoft ODBC compliant! AS/PC ® for Windows uses the MS ODBC specification. This means that our software can read and write data to and from any of the thousands of ODBC compliant third-party systems out there. This means you can write letters in Microsoft Word and merge all of your Medicare patients into the letter for a truly professional look. Microsoft, the world's most powerful software company, made provisions to read and write AS/PC's databases in most of their systems. Open financial data in Excel and graph the data in 3 easy steps that are documented in Microsoft's own help systems! Integration with the world's most popular word processor couldn't be easier.
- AS/PC ® for Windows is fully OLE and DDE compliant! Compatibility is guaranteed with all of your current Windows software. You can cut and paste between any of our systems and any compatible third-party software. Use your favorite Windows word processor, spreadsheet, group scheduler, etc., with any of DBC's systems. Create patient notes in AS/PC ® for Windows and print them using Microsoft Word, or any other word processor of your choice. Merge your AS/PC ® for Windows data into personalized Word letters, Lotus spreadsheets, etc. Graph your financial data using the power of your favorite spreadsheet!
- In fact, you can replace DBC's notes system word processor with the OLE compliant system of your choice (Microsoft Word, MS WordPad, etc.); and it will integrate directly into AS/PC®! Save sound files (like digital voice transcription), graphics, signatures, digital x-rays, and any other Windows file type right in the patient file. Collect any patient data you want!
- Unlimited patient note files - and you can name them! AS/PC ® for Windows provides the user with the ability to set up as many different types of note files as needed; and each of these can be given a unique name by the user. The note files can be processed using DBC's built in note processor, or users are free to load the note files into the Windows compatible word processor of their choice!
- Learn to love the power and simplicity of the DBC tabbed patient data screen! DBC's copyrighted patient data entry form is the most powerful and easiest to use in the industry. Simply click on a tab at the bottom of the form to immediately view the data you need. There are instant access tabs for personal data, primary carrier data, diagnosis, secondary carrier, tertiary carrier, employer and attorney (or 4th carrier), patient notes, current patient charges and payments, and for the most powerful feature of them all, the DBC user's custom "MY" file (see below).
- Collect data your way! Collect any visual or other data! For the first time, a practice management system provides users with the ability to collect graphic, sound, and virtually any other kind of data on their patients - all in one easy to access location! Keep patient signatures on line, scan patient X-rays and access them via AS/PC ® for Windows, scan patient registration forms, save recordings (video or sound) of patient sessions, and on and on! The key to this power is DBC's copyrighted "MY" file. The DBC "MY" file is a custom data file that each user can design to suit their own purposes. The "MY" file can be used to collect any kind of data, including pure binary information! You decide what data to collect!
- Experience the industry's most comprehensive on-line Windows context sensitive help system! This help system may be one of the best your staff has ever used! Forget what data goes in box 24 of the CMS claim form? Pop up our help screen for the CMS form, see a picture of the actual form on your screen, click on box 24, and you are given complete information on what should print here and where that data is saved in your system. On-line help was never like this before!
- Experience the Industry's Most Powerful, Easiest to Use, and Complete Query By Example (QBE) and SQL Support! You've may have heard the terms QBE and SQL, or seen them in various computer magazines. DBC now brings the power of these industry standard querying tools to all of its practice management software users! As your clinic(s) grow, DBC's software is ready to grow with you!
- User Defined Queries! Nearly every DBC report (daysheets, statements, claim forms, electronic claims, letters, managed care reports -- you name it!) allows the user to set a query to limit the records selected for that specific report. These queries are stored on your system, and you can add as many new queries to your system as you desire! Our "test mode" allows users to test their queries to ensure that they work as desired. Further, our unique query builder form lets you point and click your way to as complex a query as you desire to create!
- Reports, Reports, and More Reports! From custom reports that you create yourself, to powerful managed care reports designed and included by DBC, AS/PC ® for Windows © offers the most comprehensive and expandable reports package in the industry! Every report on your DBC system can be printed to any Windows printer! This includes your on-line fax, your Internet mail system, any network printer, or any a file on any hard disk on your network. Of course, you can also simply send the report to a real printer.
- Preview All Reports! Every report available in DBC's systems may be previewed to the screen or saved to a disk file for transport or printing later. One simple dialog, the DBC Output Destination Dialog, is used throughout the system whenever a user initiates a print request.
- DBC Uses the Award Winning Crystal Reports engine for its reports! Crystal is the reporting engine chosen by Microsoft, Intuit (for QuickBooks and Quicken), and many other major companies; and it has won more awards than any other report generator in the industry! Each copy of AS/PC ® for Windows includes a free runtime copy of the Crystal Reports engine for reports and labels of just about any format you can imagine!
- Speech recognition for dictating patient notes and system control! Users of Dragon Dictate (not included) can dictate their notes, charges entry, and control the AS/PC ® for Windows system menu for voice controlled operation!
- Mouse It Or Keyboard It - You decide! This is software designed with the end user in mind. Everything that you want to do in AS/PC ® for Windows can be done with either the keyboard or the mouse! Users are no longer forced to continually have to switch back and forth between their mouse and their keyboard. Lets face it, registering patients is not an activity that lends itself to using a mouse! All menu selections are available via Hot Keys.
- User Friendliness Takes On a New Meaning with DBC's Smart Tips! Pass your mouse over a data entry field or menu icon and up pops a DBC Smart Tip. These little bubble help guys will save your staff hours of time! Who needs a User's Manual? This is Windows! DBC has it all on-line! It's there all the time - whenever you want it! You've probably seen them in Microsoft Word, Excel, and other top of the line Windows software. Well, DBC has them too!
- DBC's Smart Icon Menu Bars! - If you prefer using your mouse to navigate through our software, then you will love the DBC Smart Icon Menus that are on every DBC edit form. Further, these Smart Icons have been standardized throughout our system. Learn them for one screen, and you know them for all edit forms in the system!
- Popup ToDo Lists With Calendar! Simply press ALT+F8, select a date from the DBC calendar, and your own personal ToDo list for that date pops up on your screen. DBC's Popup ToDo Lists are available for each user on the system. One user does not see another user's lists. Use these as daily reminders or as a simple appointment scheduler.
- Line Item Payments Tracking! Want to know how much all of your carriers paid you on a certain procedure? Or reconcile the patients balance to a specific procedure on a given day. Line item payment entry and tracking is the way! This superior method allows users who wish to track claim payments by individual line item can now do so via simple point and click. Simply press F5 while entering payments, and a list of unpaid insurance claims for the current patient pops up on the screen. Click on a particular claim, and another popup lists the individual transactions (CPT charges) that were on that claim. You can also click on a smart icon and pop up a list of all of the payments made to date on this particular claim. Each payment is directly tied to a specific line item charge from the claim.
- Relative Value Units! Clinics using CMS RVU's can now calculate the RVU's for all of their procedures automatically. New reports are also available for your RVU's!
- AS/PC ® for Windows Uses the Same Dialogs You've Seen Time and Time Again! If you know Windows, you already know the DBC software user interface! We are fully compliant with Microsoft's graphics user interface (GUI)! Want to select a new printer for one of our reports? Its the same old ChoosePrinter dialog that you've probably seen in a hundred Windows programs! Need to cut and paste between AS/PC ® for Windows and any other compatible Windows system? Use the exact same keyboard actions that you would in Word, Excel, Lotus, or any other Windows software that follows the rules!
- Electronic Claims At the Click of Your Mouse! Ask one of a large number of Medicare carriers who was one of the first (in many cases the first) software company to test electronic claims submissions with them, and they will tell you it was DBC, Inc.! Now, DBC's EMC software takes on the power and speed of Windows and is HIPAA compliant!
- Automatic Payments Posting through our new program, AutoPay, will quickly and accurately post payments from a HIPAA-compliant 835 file. Eliminate hours of data entry and ensure absolute accuracy.
IDAPI -- The Database Engine of Choice for Speed, Compatibility, and Flexibility
DBC has chosen to use the tried and proven popular IDAPI Database Engine from Borland, which is the engine of choice for speed, compatibility, and flexibility. Our decision to use this engine has been based upon the following technical considerations:
- Widely used by numerous software manufacturers -- Why risk using a proprietary database engine when Borland, Microsoft, and IBM have provided excellent engines with a high degree of interoperability and mutual compliance. DBC's database engine is compatible with all versions of Windows, right up through Windows XP Pro and Windows Server 2003.
- Compatibility -- Our databases can be read directly by Microsoft's ODBC engine, Access, Interbase, and numerous other popular off the shelf database engines. This means that you can run Microsoft Word mail merges, Excel Spreadsheets, or Access database applications using our data without any user conversion -- it works right out of the box! Try that with an obscure or proprietary database engine!
- Performance -- IDAPI is simple and fast! Informal tests indicate that the 16 bit version of IDAPI is faster than the 32 bit version of ODBC with databases of the size and type used by medical offices.
- Flexibility -- Perhaps the most important reason for selecting IDAPI is best demonstrated by using the popular DBC QUERY. Using simple dBase compatible statements that our software can generate for you, our users can run extremely complex queries on any of their data files. The DBC user decides what they need, and our query engine gets it for them! Please download our trial and try out our QUERY for yourself.
No other system on the market, regardless of price, offers such a powerful reporting and data selection system!
back to topManage your Practice with Confidence
The data collected in the normal course of your practice is invaluable in monitoring progress toward your business goals, and in "growing" your practice. If you have tried to make sense out of this information while working in the environment of a manual system, or maybe an inadequate or awkward computerized system, you'll really appreciate the Practice Management side of AS/PC®.
- AS/PC® works for single-provider offices or for clinics with several providers or for organizations with several clinics. In addition, the same person can be identified in different ways to satisfy alternative billing or reporting requirements.
- Up to ninety-nine office or clinic locations are supported. Providers can be associated with specific locations, while retaining the flexibility to bill out any individual person at a specific site.
- Analytical reports can be produced for the overall practice, or for selected portions such as individual providers or specific patient categories. These reports can be printed, viewed on-screen (and then printed, if you change your mind), or written to disk for printing later on.
- Monitor your practice for daily results, month-to-date figures, and annual comparisons; include or exclude no-charge patient visits at your option.
- System-generated procedures to record budget plan charges and service (interest) charges on past due balances are incorporated in the CPT Daysheet along with your regular procedures.
- Most practice statistical values (e.g. billings, patient registrations, collections) can be displayed or printed in graphical form, as either "pie," "bar," or "line" graphs.
- Export your numbers (such as daily charges and payments) to Lotus 123, Excel and several other independent programs; then use the information in spreadsheet calculations.
- A special report is available which lists all charges for the month, subtotaled by date of service. For offices caught in a hardware crash without backups, there is enough information on this report to re-create all of the month's charges.
Store Lots of Information About Your Patients
AS/PC® holds all the standard information about your patients—name and address, employment particulars, date of birth, your diagnoses, the insurance carrier, etc—but it also can hold much more. You can record and store such information as patient nicknames, what prompted the patient to come to your practice; the number of days that should elapse before you recall the patient; dates of injury and partial or complete disability; 3 secondary carriers in addition to the primary; insurance guarantor's name, address and telephone, and whether to address statements to the patient or the guarantor.
To help you use all this information, AS/PC®offers the following features:
- Immediate access to any patient record, thanks to sophisticated indexing techniques. With these indexes, routine operations are not affected by the number of patients registered. Plus, you can define your own custom indexes , and use them to control the sequence of patients in your reports.
- Register a new patient quickly by entering just the last name and 3 short pieces of information. You can fill in the rest any time before billing.
- Control the correct split between insurance responsibility and patient responsibility as charges occur by designating each patient's co-pay factor (from zero to 100%). Of course, this may be changed at any time, and may be over-ridden when you enter a specific charge.
- Control whether the "last payment date and amount" displayed with your patient data reflect the most recent patient payment, insurance payment, or either.
- Control whether the program prompts you that an x-ray date is missing, and whether the date of the most recent x-ray is updated when you post a charge for an x-ray CPT.
- Code new patients with an optional referral source indicator. Several values are built-in ( e.g. patient referral, yellow pages, etc) but you may devise your own to track particular situations, such as direct mailings.
- When referrals come from existing patients, the system keeps track of each referral a patient provides. It does this for referring professionals, also.
- Exclude any patient from system activities ( e.g. monthly statements, mailing labels) by applying one or more codes from a built-in set. Or, devise your own codes for your own purposes.
- You can tell AS/PC® to remind you to check your pop-up notes for a patient.
- Open problems tracking sub-system: maintain a log of open issues, patient-by-patient. Classify the issues according to a coding scheme of your own design. Perfect for Managed Care "gatekeepers," or use it to track lab work, keep tabs on collection problems, or as a general tickler file by patient .
- Record the CMS-mandated codes for marital and employment/student status.
- Utilize multiple fee schedules, and assign a patient to a specific schedule. The system will automatically select the correct fee schedule when charges are entered. Multiple fee schedules may be appropriate for particular carriers, HMOs or PPOs, and can refer to actual differences in charges, or just to variations in your procedure descriptions or other codes such as the POS (place of service) Code.
- The system keeps track of patient visits, so you can identify patients who have been in "x" or more times, or so you can change settings such as the patient's fee schedule or insurance co-pay percentage when appropriate.
- Supply a "visit limit" for any patient to force the computer to tell you when that patient has reached the limit. You may of course still enter charges when at or beyond the limit.
- Record up to 4 ICD-9 diagnosis codes and 4 modifiers for each patient. You have complete access to the ICD-9 file for adding codes or altering existing ones.
- Make new ICD-9 codes quickly by duplicating an existing one, and then changing it where appropriate. This technique also works for CPT codes, Insurance Carriers, Referring Providers, Providers and Patients.
- ICD-9's may be entered by typing them, or they may be selected (via "point and shoot") from a pop-up list. You can browse for just the ICD-9 you want by moving the highlight bar (your "pointer"). Alternatively, you can "jump" to specific portions of the list by typing a short part of the code or its description: the built-in indexes get you directly where you want to be.
- Use an optional "print value" of your ICD-9's to provide specific nomenclature for fussy insurance carriers. This is an easy way, for example, for Chiropractors to specify subluxation levels.
- Produce an on-demand report for any patient, showing a chronology of that patient's diagnosis history, or the diagnoses as they changed during a specific time segment.
- Indicate patient-by-patient whether or not you accept insurance assignments; or, tell the system to code each patient according to your standard office policy.
- Supply optional dates to record such events as the duration of partial or full disability, the date a patient may return to work, and the date of the most recent x-ray. You can tell the system to update the patient's x-ray date when you record a charge for an x-ray procedure.
- Use a "recall-in-x-number-of-days" field to control preparation of personalized letters to patients who should return some specified number of days after their most recent appointment.
- Record a primary and up to 3 secondary insurance carriers per patient. All carriers may be viewed and selected from a pop-up list; the file of carriers may also contain attorneys.
- View any patient's current financial balances with the touch of a single key.
- Quickly locate one or all patients who share a particular combination of characteristics.
- Add or change values in your files of insurance carriers, ICD-9 codes, providers, facilities, and your own "supplemental" file right from your patient viewing screen (charges entry screen, too).
- Link any patient to one of (potentially) several files that contain information about, for example, a particular HMO or a particular employer. You define what information you want to keep in these files.
- When unique situations arise that require you to keep additional information about any specific patient, you can tell the system what information you want to record, and then enter it only for the appropriate patients. This information can be popped-up during charges entry, too.
- Add a second account quickly for an existing patient.
- Produce personalized letters to a patient, or for several patients at a time.
- Screen your patient records for missing information needed to produce valid insurance claims.
- Use the patient's nickname to address letters and statements.
Charges and Payments
AS/PC® is a patient accounting system, so of course it provides you the means of recording charges for your services and collecting payments from patients and insurance companies. This is, in fact, the heart of our system. AS/PC® offers almost limitless flexibility and control over these routine tasks, from simple charges entry to complex multiple fee schedules. For instance:
- Perform all normal tasks associated with the flow of patients in and out of your office—except for registering a new patient—from one basic screen. When AS/PC® is in a multi-tasking environment such as Windows for Workgroups even patient registration can be accomplished without exiting the charges section of our program.
- Call up a patient record by typing a portion of the name, or the account number.
- When you begin to enter charges, you receive an instant reminder if any data required to make a valid insurance claim is missing from the patient's record.
- At your option, notify the computer that the provider treating this patient today is not the provider of record. This feature makes it easy to produce productivity figures in multi-provider practices.
- Track insurance deductibles, if you choose to, for those patients where this effort makes sense.
- Monitor capitation fees and multiple fee schedules for managed care programs and reduced fee programs, regardless of whether payment is tied to patient visits to the clinic or to the total membership of the managed care organization.
- Force the screen to flash a reminder that the patient's health care plan requires some out-of-the-ordinary handling.
- Enter your charges in a variety of ways, depending on which is better for you or more appropriate to the particular patient. You may:
- Type a specific CPT code,
- Type an office "shorthand" code that represents a real CPT code,
- Select a code from a pop-up window, using "point and shoot,"
- Type your own code for a CPT "catalog" that you have defined to represent between 2 and 9 actual CPTs that are regularly used in combination,
- Select a catalog from a pop-up window, or
- Use a pre-defined key combination to automatically enter a sequence of CPT codes.
- CPT codes carry optional class designators that can modify the results when a procedure is posted to a patient's account. These designators can do things like: keep the procedure off an insurance claim, direct billing to a specific carrier for the patient, nullify an update of the visit counter and last appointment date, help to apply a fixed patient copay amount, force the system to retain a "no charge" claim, and restrict a particular procedure to appearing on paper claims only.
- Information relevant to a valid insurance claim is displayed in a box for your review and approval. At this point, missing elements can be supplied (such as diagnosis) and other items changed (such as date of service), or the entire entry may be annulled.
- Specific CPTs can be designated to always or to never accept assignment.
- In all cases, as soon as you verify that the code or CPT you entered is the CPT you wanted, the patient's record is updated. The charges entry screen (patient viewing and payment entry screens, too) always show you the up-to-the-minute account balance for the patient, including the portion due from the carrier and the portion due from the patient.
- Alter or delete individual charges or an entire "invoice"—but only if you have the proper security clearance.
- The charges you enter are saved "forever" with associated information such as diagnosis, date of service, provider, insurance carrier and co-pay percentage. Today's treatment always stays with today's diagnosis. You decide, not your computer, if or when to delete any information.
- Procedure records entered with a zero charge, except for special comment entries, are normally removed during month-end, but you can force the system to keep any particular zero-charge records that you want.
- Get immediate access to your pop-up patient progress or administrative notes so you can record any appropriate changes or additions.
- After entering charges, you have the option of moving on to the next patient or of recording a payment. Like charges, payments update the patient's record as soon as they are entered.
- Payment transactions are for patient check (or cash) or credit card, patient balance credits and debits, insurance payments and insurance balance adjustments. Your daysheets split out payments according to the type of payment: cash (patient and insurance) or credit card.
- Print an optional charge slip (walk-out receipt) for the patient. Charge slips can be reprinted as necessary, or may be printed after-the-fact if circumstances change.
- Enter insurance payments from the same screen as patient payments. A pop-up window shows you all open claims for the patient. You have the option of "expanding" each open claim to review specific details.
- Select insurance claims for payment via the "point and shoot" method. The window displays the claim number, date of service, number of CPTs, the billed and expected amounts, and any applied partial payments.
- You have the option of tracking carrier payments for specific charges on claims.
- When a payment is less than the amount you expected ( e.g. you billed $100 and expect $80 under an 80-20 co-pay, but the carrier remits $73) AS/PC® will ask how it should handle the difference. You can apply the amount as a partial payment and leave the claim "open;" close the claim and transfer the deficit to the patient; close the claim and "forgive" (write-off) the deficit; or close the claim and "ignore" the deficit. Claim number identity is retained in the patient charge that results from the transfer.
- Patient charge and payment activity may be viewed or printed in detail , via a simulation of the old-fashioned ledger card.
Billing and Patient Statements
Once you have registered your patients and entered your charges, you need to be able to bill insurance companies and produce statements. You have powerful options at your disposal, and the system helps your billing routines go smoothly.
- AS/PC® prepares the standard CMS 1500 claim form, of course.. You have control over every section of the form that permits optional entries. For instance, AS/PC® will fill in box 24h, the EPSDT Family Plan indicator, if you need it.
- AS/PC® gives you near-total flexibility in preparing boxes 19 and 24 of the CMS form—the sections most affected by unique state and carrier requirements.
- You can print an "amount paid" in box 29, a requirement Medicare makes of certain professions.
- Claims may be printed individually or "by batch." A batch might be all claims for a particular category of patient, like Medicare, or all claims for a particular carrier, or just about any combination of characteristics you can think of.
- AS/PC® offers three separate routines to check that all the information you need for a valid claim has been entered.
- AS/PC® will change the clinic identifying numbers in box 33 of the CMS form depending upon the patient category (Medicare, Work Comp, etc) and the particular provider/location combination for the claim.
- AS/PC® will not accidentally print a claim twice, but you can force a reprint of individual claims as often as necessary. You can control whether the reprint looks exactly like the first one, or carries the notation "Resubmission."
- You can also reprint claims in batches (with or without a "Resubmission" notation) from months you've already closed. Identify the claims you want according to a range of claim numbers, or some other criterion such as Date of Service. Of course, any claims already paid will not be included in the re-print.
- AS/PC® will remind you if you have failed to prepare some insurance claims for the current month.
- The process for issuing claims to secondary carriers is the same as for primary carriers.
- Secondary carrier claims disclose the amount already paid by the primary carrier.
- You can activate options that control minimum and maximum dollar amounts on any one claim.
- Choose to print one claim form or multiple forms for the same patient in the same billing period when that patient has been treated by more than one provider.
- Optionally force a separate CMS form for each unique DOS.
- Easily changed system options control the contents of various claim form entries, in order to conform to the requirements of different carriers. You can establish different sets of options, give them names, and save them. Then, you can switch between claim formats simply by recalling your named set of options.
- Secondary carriers can be identified as Medigap or Medicaid for automatic crossover.
- Carrier labels are available for a particular type of claim (to primary or to secondary carriers, preprinted forms or itemized statements, tracers).
- Insurance claims may be printed or written in print-image format to a disk file for printing at a later time.
- An available Claims Register logs and tracks primary claims, secondary claims and tracers, and may be run for the current month or prior months.
- Insurance tracers are available on demand, originated by the patient or by the provider, and may optionally be produced by Date of Service.
- Monthly patient statements can be printed for all patients, or only selected ones, at your option.
- Statements can be printed on plain paper, on forms with important areas highlighted, on "short" forms with tear-off remittance stubs, or on self-mailers. Short form statements can note that you accept charge cards, and provide space for your patients to enter their card number, expiration date and a signature.
- Full sized and "short" forms are both suitable for window envelopes.
- Several options are available to control the statement contents; different formats may be used for different patients.
- Print a SuperStatement at any time from the main program menu, while working with a patient record, or while entering charges. SuperStatements look similar to regular statements, but are subject to your control of the information they present. For example, you may choose to print payments only, or charges only, or both; and you may specify the time period to be included.
Electronic Claims
AS/PC® supports Electronic Medical Claims submission in several varieties:
- Submit directly to Medicare, or any carrier adhering to the CMS HIPAA Compliant ANSI Format, at no charge per claim.
- Submit to Emdeon (formerly Webmd), national clearing house, and let them figure out how to satisfy the varying formatting requirements of individual carriers. The cost per claim here is about 35 cents.
- Submit directly to Medicare Part A for Physical Therapy services.
- Depending on your practice, you can use any one of these techniques, or mix them.
- Optionally process selected claims on paper in your office, and file the rest electronically; or, send everything through a clearinghouse and let them submit paper claims for you where necessary.
General Reporting
- AS/PC® produces all of the standard listings and correspondence you would expect to find in a complete practice management system, and also many unique documents and varieties.
- DBC offers a separate "Sample Reports" booklet that demonstrates the reporting capabilities of AS/PC.®
- In addition to "ready-made" reports, our "LISTER" feature gives you the capability to design and print your own simple columnar reports, and to save the report design for use another time.
- Every report available from AS/PC® can be printed, viewed on-screen, or written to disk for printing at a later time. If you choose to view a report on screen and then decide you really wanted a paper copy, you can just press a key and get one.
- You will find an array of reporting options throughout AS/PC®. Basic reports are often available in a choice of sequences, in summary or detailed versions, and with information for the current day, current month to date, current year, or for prior days or months.
- Reports can be controlled by the optional use of Query, and can therefore be produced to show the activity of a single entity, or combinations of providers, patients, carriers, time periods and characteristics.
System Utilities
Sometimes things go wrong in a computer. For this reason, your AS/PC® dealer will try everything possible to insure that your office makes a backup copy of your data every day. In the vast majority of cases, computer problems are related to your electrical supply, or to inappropriate user actions such as "re-booting" or turning off the computer without first exiting the program properly. If something does get fouled up, however, AS/PC® has some built-in help:
- AS/PC® has a routine that rebuilds all data file indexes The program recognizes the need for this and automatically runs the rebuild. This protects your valuable data. Systems that don't have this feature are prone to severe data corruption problems. With AS/PC® you are protected.
- AS/PC® comes with a companion program, AS/PC Utilities® that adds even more capability for diagnosis and repair of data problems, such as examining and repairing the logical consistency of major data files. In addition, this program can be used to correct or reverse various user-created situations, such as premature monthly closing.
- Each setup option gives you an option to print the current values before you apply a change.
- A system log records all program start and stop activity. When you browse or print this file, you can see the date and time of day that each DBC program was started and stopped, and what password was used.
Unclassifiable, but Very Useful
- "Query by Example," a structured way to define groupings of your patient (or other) file through use of a "filter," called a Query. This lets you view or print a report or a set of mailing labels for, say, all Medicare patients with a primary diagnosis of 839.02 who have not been x-rayed in the last 12 months. Queries can be named and saved for future use.
- Two optional performance-enhancing techniques are available for use with your Queries. One automatically turns a Query into a disk file index; the other sets a starting point, convenient when you must search through a very large set of sequential records and you know you don't need the records at the beginning.
- Patient letters and other routine office correspondence can be typed with our built-in word processor. The word processor offers all the basic text formatting features such as cut and paste, text justification, boldface, italics and underlining.
- You can create pattern documents with the Word Processor and then use a technique called "mail-merge" to personalize them into letters, or into reports that incorporate patient-specific data. This is available while you are working with a patient record, or while you are entering charges.
- The "open architecture" design of all DBC products allows third-party products, particularly a growing list of progress note documentation systems, to use the data you record in AS/PC®.
- "Relational reporting" can be used to extract information from more than one data file when producing letters or reports via "mail-merge."
- Multi-user Version, and other Options
- AS/PC ® ARM is an Advanced Reporting Module intended as an analysis tool for offices participating in managed care programs, but usable by any office looking for additional patient activity analysis. This program provides fee comparison reports (capitated vs. normal), visits/billing reports and patient/member reports.