Schoen Clinic’s Orthopaedic & Spinal Hospital in central London has achieved deserved recognition as a centre of excellence for treating musculoskeletal conditions and sports injuries. In addition to winning Hospital of the Year in 2019 at the LaingBuisson Awards, it was a finalist in 2021 and is part of an award-winning international group which treats more than 300,000 patients each year.   

With world class facilities including a high dependency unit, three operating theatres and a state-of-the-art imaging department, Schoen Clinic London provides the entire treatment pathway, including diagnosis, non-surgical and surgical treatments and rehabilitation. As well as self-funded patients and GP referrals, the hospital is one of a select number in the Healthcare Purchasing Alliance (HPA) which buys complete packages of care on behalf of Aviva and Vitality Health.

To maintain Schoen Clinic’s high standards, it’s important that the back-office admin is managed as effectively as the delivery of specialist care. Finance and Revenue Assurance Manager, Henry Muscatt, oversees this aspect of the business but says it would be virtually impossible without Healthcode services including pre-authorisation, membership enquiry and online invoicing.

“We’ve been using Healthcode since we opened in August 2018,” he says. “Overall, they’re fantastic and there simply isn’t anyone else that can do what they do. Submitting all our invoices manually, for example, would be a full-time job whereas we can raise them in-house, and submit them as XML files online. The whole process flows really well and it works for everyone: the insurers get the bill sooner; we get paid sooner; and our patients have peace of mind that the invoice has gone through and been sorted.”

The simplicity of electronic invoicing means Henry can focus on ensuring invoices are accurate and validated first time. Again, we’ve been the ideal support.

Henry explains: “When patients are referred by HPA (Aviva & Vitality), we use the online pre-authorisation service to obtain the data for that episode of care such as consultant, authorisation number, policy number and the patient’s name and date of birth. It’s really useful as it minimises how much information we have to get directly from patients and provides another layer of security as we have the correct details from the beginning.”

If Henry and his team don’t have an insured patient’s membership number, they use our Membership Enquiry service which checks their demographic details against the relevant insurer database. “Sometimes the number has been taken down wrong or it’s slightly out of date,” he says. “When this happens, I ask the admin team to use Healthcode’s Membership Enquiry service. Although it doesn’t always find a match, the service is straightforward to use: you just type in the patient’s details, hit refresh and the results are virtually instant. When we don’t have a valid membership number for the patient, we reach out to them directly but this can be a time-consuming process.”

“When an invoice doesn’t go through, it’s mostly because of a problem with the patient’s membership details although sometimes it can be a coding issue such as where a prosthesis isn’t mapped to an insurer. When this happens, I contact Healthcode’s Coding team who are really good,” says Henry.

Thanks to the performance dashboard on its account, Henry can see that around 80% of Schoen’s electronic invoices are validated first time, slightly higher than the industry average. However, Henry has a more ambitious target of 95% in mind and is keen to work with us to make this a reality. “I’d recommend hospitals use Healthcode services,” he concludes. “In fact, if a new hospital started up and they decided not to use them, I think they’d be in trouble!”

The post “The whole process flows really well and it works for everyone” – Henry Muscatt, Schoen Clinic appeared first on Healthcode.

Healthcode’s reply: If you’re subscribed to ePractice Pro, you can set up recurring clinic sessions for him on the day he’s at that location. This time will be assigned in the diary so you can book patients in with confidence.

Quick guide to setting up recurring sessions

• Select Appointments and then Clinic/Theatre Sessions.
• Click New Session button at the bottom of the page.
• Type in a description of the session and then click the drop-down menu to select the location. If this isn’t listed our Customer Services team can add new locations on request.
• Select the setting and treatment function from the drop-down list.  
• Set the start and end time for the clinic and the duration of appointment slots.
• Select frequency of session – daily, weekly, monthly or yearly – from the drop-down list.
• Choose a start and end date for the sessions e.g. ongoing.
• Click Save and the clinic will be listed as an appointment session.  

Discover More

To find out more about the appointment features in ePractice, why not book a demo with our Business Development team.

The post Have you tried… setting up recurring clinic sessions? appeared first on Healthcode.

While few practitioners have experience of running a business, the most successful are those who draw on the time management skills they learned early in their professional career. By identifying ways to work smarter and making the most of the latest practice management technology, they’ve been able to ‘steal back’ time to focus on patients and develop their practice.

Every practice has time-consuming tasks that could be managed more effectively, often by making better use of technology. Here are five of the most common admin ‘bottlenecks’ to address:

• Correspondence – Medical secretaries can spend their time typing, printing and dispatching letters to keep patients and their GPs informed about appointments, investigations and treatments. Streamline the process by using letter templates for common subjects which can be completed with the relevant patient details. Our ePractice Lite and Pro software also allows you to select and batch print multiple documents at a time.
• Patient insurance cover – Practices regularly need to call hospitals or insurers to confirm a patient’s insurance details, but this can be a time-consuming – and sometimes a frustrating – exercise. Our online membership enquiry feature enables you to instantly check patients’ policy numbers and address details against the insurers’ database.
• Invoicing – Electronic invoicing and clearing can save you money by eliminating printing, postage and manpower costs. Creating and submitting invoices to insurers – via our encrypted, secure service – takes a fraction of the time, improves accuracy and ensures the invoice is validated against the relevant insurer criteria – so it’s ready for processing and payment. This secure platform eliminates the risk of data breaches possible when sending invoices by post or email, plus you have the additional reassurance of knowing the invoice has been received by the insurer.
• Payment tracking – When payments arrive, every practice needs a system to record exactly what invoices are being paid and identify shortfalls. This can be time-consuming with a manual system and in some cases, practices have been obliged to write-off outstanding debts because payments have not been reconciled against the correct invoice. Our payment tracking tools will help you save time and money.
• Financial reports – Without access to accurate information it’s impossible to steer your business effectively. However, manual bookkeeping and accounting systems require expertise and time to prepare even basic reports such as an aged debtor analysis. Your practice management system should provide a range of real-time financial reports, so you can measure your performance, analyse your strengths and weaknesses and make informed decisions.

Discover more

Find out how ePractice Lite and Pro can help streamline your processes and avoid a bottleneck of admin tasks with the Healthcode Academy’s team of Service Delivery Associates. They’ll guide you using your own data to make the training as relevant as possible.

Discover what else you can do in ePractice by checking out our comprehensive  Help and Support articles.

To find out more about this or any other feature of ePractice Lite or Pro contact our Business Development team.

The post Working smarter with technology appeared first on Healthcode.

By validating each invoice in line with the criteria set by each insurer, we ensure they’re ready for processing and payment on receipt. More efficient all round. But sometimes invoices fail the process and need submitting again. When this happens during your invoicing run, it’s important to know exactly what’s gone wrong, how to correct it and hopefully prevent it recurring.

Our Premium level Financial Management Solutions for hospitals include the clever Failed Bills Management Tools to help you identify and fix issues in failed invoices, from one-off inaccuracies to persistent coding errors. By increasing accuracy and efficiency, you’ll quickly see improvements in your invoicing success rate. In fact, when we reviewed monthly failed invoice volumes over a twelve-month period, we found those on the Premium package had 42% fewer recurring failed invoices compared with those using the Standard package.

Our Premium package includes:

• Failed Bills Management Workflow which shows, at a glance, how many invoices have failed, categorised by reason. You don’t have to spend time opening and reviewing each invoice.  
• The ability to apply bulk fixes when an issue has affected multiple invoices and reprocess these at the same time.
• Filters to aid quick analysis. For example, you can focus on invoices to a particular insurer or zero in on failed charge lines within an invoice.
• Colour coded invoice categories – create and assign a colour to different invoice categories for better visibility and manage work flow.
• Failure Analysis Reports are available to increase visibility and manageability of the error handling process. This will help you to correct any issue within your patient administration system and resubmit the invoice.

Want to know more?

To find out how our tools can help you submit fully validated invoices to the insurers efficiently and improve your cash flow, contact our Business Development team.

The post Our invoicing tools point the way to success appeared first on Healthcode.

The first thing you’ll notice is that the site presents us in a completely new light. Our new image and branding are a decisive break with the past and reflect our ambition to help the private healthcare sector find a better way to work.       

But the changes are much more than cosmetic. They mark a shift in the way we engage with and support you all. We’ve got many features which we’re sure will make the experience better for everyone, including:

• A clear design so you can quickly navigate to the right page

We’ve re-organised the site so you can find information at your fingertips. In just a couple of clicks, easily discover relevant solutions to help your business thrive.

• Better help and support

We’ve put all the information you need in one place so it’s quick and easy to get the most from our products and services. With multi-channel support on the way, we’re giving you even more options for getting in touch.

• Jargon-free content

We’ve gone back to basics. All the information on the site is clear and easy to read.

We’re very proud of the new website but we’re not resting on our laurels. We’ll be adding more features and content to support you and to reflect the improvements we’re making as part of our Transformation Programme. Watch this space.  

We also want to ensure this is a valuable resource for you. So even if you only visit www.healthcode.co.uk to log in, we hope you’ll spend some time exploring. Let us know what you think by emailing marketing@healthcode.co.uk.

The post A new era for Healthcode appeared first on Healthcode.

By the time of our twentieth birthday in 2020, we were known for a range of innovative products and services – like The PPR (The Private Practice Register), ePractice, secure file sharing and shortfall collections – that could streamline admin processes, seamlessly connect organisations and provide access to accurate data for informed decision-making.

We’ve always believed that our online technology has the potential to transform the private healthcare sector. However, we also know that Healthcode itself has to change in order to achieve this ambition.

Following a strategic review of the business, we’ve embarked on an ambitious Transformation Programme to ensure that modern business systems and processes are in place to operate efficiently on a bigger scale and be more accessible to our customers.

The bold programme covers five areas of our business:

• Clearing systems – We’re ensuring our core services are secure, reliable and easily accessible from multiple user interfaces.
• Customer operations – We’re both expanding our service capacity as well as giving you more control over your Healthcode account and multi-channel support so you can contact us in the way and time that suits you best.
• Technical infrastructure – We’ve migrated to a gold standard IT infrastructure which is better able to support our technology in terms of reliability, scalability and security; and we’re changing our approach to product development so we can be faster, more responsive and customer-focused.
• Information governance – We’ve adopted a security-by-design approach to everything we do to ensure we maintain the highest data security standards.
• Central functions – We’re strengthening our teams across the business, ensuring they have the skills, resources and leadership to take Healthcode to the next level.

As a customer, we hope you’ve noticed some of the ‘early wins’ we’ve already introduced, such as the expansion of our Customer Service team, the new password reset facility and the Healthcode Academy which provides free 1-2-1 online training to help you get the most from ePractice and The PPR.

We’re also working on a number of other projects, including a more user-friendly way to log in and access your Healthcode products and services from one place and a new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to make it easier for you to contact us.

Healthcode has always occupied a unique place at the heart of the sector and our mission is to see it prosper. The scope of this Transformation Programme reflects our commitment to supporting your business and working together to shape the future of private healthcare.

If you have any questions about the Transformation Programme, contact Nicola Kingsmill, Transformation Programme Director.

The post How we’re transforming Healthcode appeared first on Healthcode.

Healthcode’s reply: Our Secure Messaging service enables you to send sensitive health and financial information to contacts in our Global Directory of over 2,500 contacts. Using the same encryption to online banking standards, you can be confident that you are meeting your data protection obligations.

Secure Messaging is available to ePractice Lite and Pro users and in our Financial Management Solution for VEDA users. You can set up your own personal list of contacts from those available, manage your message settings and download document templates for making standard requests from insurers and hospitals.

Quick guide to sending a secure message

• Access the Secure Messaging system via the Messaging tab.
• Click the Compose Message tab.
• Start typing the name in the ‘To’ field to show suggested matches and select recipient from this list.
• You can also search for a contact on the Global Directory by clicking the ‘To’ button to display the select recipient window and enter their name in the search for field. Select one or more recipients from the list of possible recipients, including name, job title, department and organisation.
• Type your message – you have a maximum 2,000 characters – and add up to three attachments of up to 1MB. You can increase this limit by contacting Customer Services on custserv@healthcode.co.uk.
• Click send.
• Use the Manage Settings button to set up automatic notifications to the email address of your choice when you receive a new Secure Message.
• You can use the Insurer Quick Reference for an instant view of Insurer mailboxes.

Discover More

To find out more about the Secure Messaging features in ePractice or VEDA contact our Business Development team.

The post Have you tried… using Secure Messaging? appeared first on Healthcode.

As you raise invoices on a third-party practice management system and submit them through our Clearing Service using VEDA, here’s our guide to the most common error messages. We’ve also given you some simple tips on how to quickly resolve them.

Access Denied

What this means: You haven’t set up a Clearing Service subscription.

What you can do:

• Log into your Healthcode Account and go to your VEDA site. Select “Manage Subscription” to set up your direct debit payment. More information on how to do this can be found here for practitioners and here for practices and clinics.
• If you’re unable to access your account, you can request a payment link to be sent from the Customer Services team to set up the direct debit.

Invalid User Name/Password

What this means: The incorrect details / password have been entered into the third-party system.

What you can do:

• Contact our Customer Services team. It’ll help us resolve the issue more quickly if you have your welcome email from the Registrations team to hand.
• Speak to your own system vendor.

Payee Provider – Must be M

What this means: The practitioner isn’t set up as a payee provider (who gets paid directly by the insurer) and we don’t have consent to process these invoices.

What you can do:

• Request, complete and return a data processing consent form through Customer Services.

Hospital not mapped

What this means: The treatment location hasn’t been mapped (added) to your site. In rare cases, it may be because an insurer doesn’t recognise a particular treatment location.

What you can do:

• Contact Customer Services with the name and address of the treatment location, along with a user ID / Site ID for mapping.

Treatment setting must be I, O or D

What this means: The invoice has the incorrect service setting for the treatment/procedure. For example, heart surgery couldn’t take place in a consulting room and would need to be at an inpatient care facility like a hospital.

What you can do:

• Select the correct treatment setting on the invoice. These are: I= Inpatient O= Outpatient D= Day case.

Need more support?

If you need further help with invoice errors and how to resolve them, contact our Customer Services team

The post Clearing up common error messages | VEDA appeared first on Healthcode.

Healthcode’s reply: No, you don’t as invoice auto-population enables practitioners (who are recognised as controlling specialists) to generate an invoice with the correct patient and episode fields completed, including the patient’s GP, insurer, membership number and the diagnosis and procedure codes used by the hospital. Anaesthetists and radiologists can also use this feature for episodes where they provided care and are linked to the controlling specialist.
All you need to do is add your own fee which you can do with one click if you use our pricing matrix feature. 
This feature is only available to ePractice Lite or Pro users.

Quick guide

• Check your status page for a list of all the patients where invoices have been sent by the hospital showing you as “controlling specialist” (surgeons only).
• Anaesthetists and radiologists will need to enter the patient’s last name, date of birth, treatment date and hospital in the search box.
• Select the patient you want to invoice.
• Check details from the hospital invoice, including patient, GP, primary diagnosis and procedure.
• Complete the fields for service dates and fee.
• Click Service type and select an option from the dropdown menu.
• Complete invoice by clicking save and send.

Discover More

If you’re interested in finding out more about ePractice Lite or Pro why not book a demo with our Business Development team.

Learn more about invoice auto-population and other time-saving ePractice features by signing up for our free online tutorials with the Healthcode Academy. The Academy’s Service Delivery Associates will guide you through our series of short, personalised training sessions, using your own data to make the training as relevant as possible.

We offer a one-hour billing module – Electronic billing & collection | Module 2 – that takes you through everything to do with invoicing. For those who just want to focus on invoice auto-population, we offer a bite-size option – you’ll need module 2A.

The post Have you tried…invoice auto population? appeared first on Healthcode.