Chapter 2: Introduction to

Medisoft
Eva L. Hearn, MPH
Instructor
 Medisoft
PMP or PMS
Widely used system across the country
Used for the following tasks
Enter information on new patients and change information on established
patients as needed
Enter transactions, such as charges, to patients accounts
Submit insurance claims to payers
Record payments and adjustments from patients and insurance companies
Print walkout statements and reminder statements for patients
Monitor collections activities
Print standard reports and create custom reports
Schedule appointments
 The Medisoft Databases
Provider datainformation about physicians as well as practice
(name, address, phone number, tax and provider ID numbers)
Patient datapatient unique chart number and personal
information
Insurance carrierscontains name, address and other data about
each insurance carrier
Diagnosis codesICD-9 codes; reason service was provided
Procedure codesCPT codes; data needed to create charges
Transactionsstores information about each patients visits,
diagnoses, procedures, received and outstanding payments
Each database is linked or related to each of the others
 Medisoft Menus
File Menu
Used to open an existing practice or create a new
practice
Used to back up data and restore data, set program
and security options, change program date and
perform file and maintenance activities (Figure 3-2)
Edit menu
Contains the basic commands needed to move,
change or delete information
 Medisoft Menus, contd
Activities Menu
Most data collected day-to-day are entered through options on this menu
Used to perform most billing tasks
Entering financial transactions
Creating insurance claims
Entering deposits
Viewing unprocessed transactions coming from an EHR
Viewing summaries of patient account information
Calculating billing charges
Performing collections activities
Launching the Work Administrator
Opening the appointment scheduler
Contains options for verifying patient eligibility
 Medisoft Menus, contd
Lists Menu
Used to enter new patient information (Figure 3-5)
Used to change information for estabished patients
Provides access to lists of procedure and diagnosis codes,
insurance carriers, electronic data receivers, referring
providers, facilities, providers billing codes, contacts, claim
rejection messages and payment plans
Reports Menu
Used to print reports about patient accounts and the practice
(Figure 3-6)
Comes with a number of standard report formats
 Medisoft Menus, contd
Tools Menu
Provides access to a number of utilities that are built into
Medisoft (i.e. calculator)
Can be used to create collection letters and patient statements
(Figure 3-7)
Window Menu
Allows you to switch between several open windows (Figure
3-8)
Help Menu (Figure 3-9)
Used to access Medisofts built-in help feature and provides
link to support
Exercise 3-1 p. 70
Medisoft Menus
 The Medisoft Toolbar
Located below the Menu Bar
Contains 26 buttons with icons that represent
the most common activities performed in
Medisoft (Figure 3-11 and Table 3-1)
Exercise 3-2 p. 70
Toolbar Buttons
 Entering, Editing, Saving and
Deleting Date in Medisoft
Similar to the way you perform these functions in other
Windows programs
Entering data
All data is entered into Medisoft through the menus on the
menu bar or the buttons in the toolbar
Use tab key to move between text boxes within a dialog box
Some information is entered by keying information into a
textbox
Some information is entered by electing from a list of choices
Editing Data
Follow steps originally used to enter data
Exercise 3-3
p. 73
Editing Data
 Entering, Editing, Saving and
Deleting Date in Medisoft, contd
Saving Data
Click Save button that appears in most dialog boxes
You will save your data to your flash drive
Deleting Data
You may want to delete an insurance carrier
You can click Delete Button
If no button is available, select text to be deleted and
hit delete key on keyboard or the right mouse button
 Changing the Medisoft Program
Date
Medisoft is a date sensitive program
You will need to change the program date for all
exercises/transactions in this book because you are recording the
transactions on a different day than when they occurred
Most exercises take place in 2016
Dialog boxes will appear to ensure you want to add information
for a future date
To change program datethere are two methodswe will use
Windows 7 method (p. 80)
Dates are entered manually using MMDDCCYY format
Remember to change program date at the beginning of each exerciseif
not, information entered will be incorrect
 Using Medisoft Help
Hints
Appear in Status Bar at the bottom of the screen as
the cursor moves over certain fields (Figure 3-26)
Built-In
For more extensive help, select Medisoft Help on
Help Menu (Figure 3-27)
Online
Contains a searchable knowledge-base (a collection
of up-to-date technical information about Medisoft)
Exercise 3-4 & 3-5
pgs. 82 & 83
Using Built-In Help
Using Online Help
 Creating and Restoring Back-Up
Files
You can make Medisoft inactive by using the
minimize button
Reactivate by maximizing it
Creating a Backup File While Exiting Medisoft
The extra copy of data files made at a specific point
in timeBackup data
Performed on a regular schedule
Usually stored at another location
ALWAYS backup your data on your flash drive
Exercise 3-6
p. 87
Backing Up
 Restoring the Back Up
Process of retrieving data from backup storage
See steps p. 88
Medisofts File Maintenance Utilities
Four Features to assist in maintaining data files
Rebuilding Indexesa process that checks and
verifies data and corrects any internal data problems
Does not change the content of any data files
Rebuild files at least once/month to ensure the files are
working properly
Packing Data
The deletion of vacant slots from a database
 Medisofts File Maintenance
Utilities, contd
Purging Data
Deleting files of patients who are no longer seen by
a provider in a practice
Frees space on the computer and permits the system
to run more efficiently
Recalculating Patient Balances
Updating balances to reflect the most recent changes
made to the data
Can access through the Recalculate Balances tab on
the File Maintenance dialog box
 Using Medisoft Security Features to Ensure
HIPAA and HITECH Compliance
Access rightssecurity option that determines the areas of the program a user
can access, and whether the user has rights to enter or edit data
5 Levels of Security
1 has the most access and 5 has the least access
User logins and audit controls
Users are assigned usernames and passwords once security has been set
Requiring users to log-in limits access to the program to those who have been
assigned logins
Also allows tracking the actions of users within the program
Auto Log Off and Unapproved Codes
Auto log offfeature of Medisoft that automatically logs a user out of the
program after a period of inactivity
If a code has not been marked HIPAA compliant, a warning box will appear