medilink manual manual.pdfplease note you should avoid altering the provider number of a referring...

Medilink Manual

Last Revision 2015-04-10

© 2014 Advanced Professional Systems Pty Ltd

Medilink Manual

© 2014 Advanced Professional Systems Pty Ltd Page i

Table of Contents

Installation .................................................................................................................................. 1

Full Install ............................................................................................................................... 1

Update Install ......................................................................................................................... 2

Migration ................................................................................................................................ 3

Initial Setup ................................................................................................................................ 5

Registration ............................................................................................................................ 5

Settings .................................................................................................................................. 5

Management Tasks ................................................................................................................... 8

Users & Security ..................................................................................................................... 8

Practices, Providers & Referrers ............................................................................................. 9

Practices ............................................................................................................................. 9

Providers............................................................................................................................. 9

Referrers ............................................................................................................................10

Item Numbers ........................................................................................................................12

Banking .................................................................................................................................14

Common Tasks .........................................................................................................................15

Patient & Account ..................................................................................................................15

Add/Edit Patient .................................................................................................................15

Add/Edit Account ...............................................................................................................16

Attach Patient to Alternate Account ....................................................................................17

Account Claiming Options ..................................................................................................18

Referral ..............................................................................................................................19

Patient Verification.................................................................................................................20

Medicare/Concession ........................................................................................................20

DVA ...................................................................................................................................21

Funds .................................................................................................................................22

Enterprise Verification ........................................................................................................24

Appointments ........................................................................................................................25

Provider Schedule ..............................................................................................................25

Add/Edit Appointment ........................................................................................................27

Delete Appointment ...........................................................................................................28

Copy/Move Appointment ....................................................................................................29

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© 2014 Advanced Professional Systems Pty Ltd Page ii

Appointment Status ............................................................................................................29

Review Patient Appointments ............................................................................................30

Billing ....................................................................................................................................30

Private Billing .....................................................................................................................31

Invoice ............................................................................................................................31

Receipt ...........................................................................................................................31

Integrated EFTPOS ....................................................................................................33

Cash Consultation ..........................................................................................................34

Quote .............................................................................................................................35

Prepayment ....................................................................................................................36

Apply Credit ....................................................................................................................37

Corrections .....................................................................................................................38

Refunds ..........................................................................................................................38

Reverse Receipt .........................................................................................................38

Refund Credit ..............................................................................................................38

Medicare Online Patient Claims .....................................................................................39

Medicare Easyclaim Patient Claims ................................................................................40

Bulk Billing .........................................................................................................................41

Medicare Invoice ............................................................................................................42

Veteran Affairs Invoice ...................................................................................................42

Easyclaim .......................................................................................................................43

Corrections .....................................................................................................................44

Batching .........................................................................................................................45

Batch Processing ...........................................................................................................46

Easyclaim Bulk Bill Processing .......................................................................................47

Receive & Process ......................................................................................................47

BIR Report Viewer ......................................................................................................49

Easyclaim Bulk Bill Review .........................................................................................49

ECLIPSE ...............................................................................................................................53

Setup .................................................................................................................................53

Verification .........................................................................................................................56

Admission ..........................................................................................................................56

IMC ....................................................................................................................................57

OEC ...................................................................................................................................58

IMC/OEC Status Check & Report ......................................................................................59

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© 2014 Advanced Professional Systems Pty Ltd Page iii

Bulk IMC/OEC Status Check & Report ...............................................................................60

IHC ....................................................................................................................................61

ACIR .....................................................................................................................................63

Ancillary Provider ...............................................................................................................63

ACIR Claims ......................................................................................................................64

Letters ...................................................................................................................................68

Secure Letters ...................................................................................................................69

SMS Reminders ....................................................................................................................70

EHR & Results ......................................................................................................................71

Appendix ...................................................................................................................................72

Billing Codes .........................................................................................................................72

Medilink Manual

© 2014 Advanced Professional Systems Pty Ltd Page 1

Installation

Full Install

1. Log on to your computer as an administrator.

2. Temporarily disable your A/V solution (it may interfere with installation).

3. If this is a LAN workstation computer you *must* be able to navigate to the MEDILINK

share of your LAN server computer in Explorer. If not, ensure you are on the same

domain/workgroup and/or map a drive letter and save credentials, (or contact your IT

department).

4. Find your install files FullInstall.EXE and MedilinkUpdate.EXE on media provided or

existing Medilink installation under MedilinkUpdate subfolder.

5. Run FullInstall.EXE.

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6. Follow the prompts choosing options that are appropriate (leave the defaults if you are

unsure). If it appears to be stuck, just be aware that sometimes dialogs can be hidden

behind others and you should ALT+TAB if necessary. If you are on a LAN workstation

computer that still refuses to ‘see’ the server, try installing Medilink as a standalone

server and re-path after install using the Network Management utility. Also note, if you

do have any errors during installation you may find that you can bypass them for now

and simply run an Update over the top to resolve them, (in normal circumstances you

don’t have to run the Update after a Full Install though).

Update Install

1. Run the Medilink Launcher and click Update Medilink, or run the

MedilinkUpdate\MedilinkUpdate.EXE file directly.

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2. Follow the prompts choosing options that are appropriate (leave the defaults if you are

unsure). If it appears to be stuck, just be aware that sometimes dialogs can be hidden

behind others and you should ALT+TAB if necessary.

Migration

1. Install Medilink on the new PC.

2. Copy across the old Medilink32BNT folder over the top of your fresh install. If this is a

server migration, make sure you copy the old server folder. If it is a workstation

migration/propagation, make sure you copy across the folder from a computer that is

similar to the role that this new PC will fulfill.

3. Open Bin\Medi_Acc.INI and modify the [PATHS] section such that the old paths now

reflect the new server/local paths.

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4. Run an Update over the top.

5. If you have migrated your server, use the Network Management utility to re-point

Medilink to the new server location; this must be done on all computers.

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Initial Setup

Registration

1. When you first run Medilink on a new server Full Install it will be unregistered and in

tutorial mode.

2. Go to Help->Register Medilink and fill in the details provided to you.

3. After successfully registering the product you will be prompted with details of a Medilink

admin level user. By default this is principal provider’s firstname space lastname, and

the password is MEDILINK in all caps – although you should change it after first login.

Settings

1. On first run you will be guided through a wizard to setup the various Medilink settings,

(these can be prefilled with server settings if you are on a workstation).

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2. Follow the prompts and make the changes necessary.

3. You will have to alter settings from time to time. These settings will be explained in more

detail in the appropriate section below, but we will list the various locations here for ease

of access during setup. You will need to be an admin level user in Medilink to change

these:

• General Settings: File->Accounting Setup/General Options.

• Printer: File->Printer Setup.

• General Lists: File->Change Details->Edit Lists.

• Providers: File->Change Details->Provider Details. This will be covered in a later

section.

• Referrers: File->Change Details->Referring Providers. This will be covered in a

later section.

• Item Numbers: File->Change Details->Item Numbers. This will be covered in a

later section.

• Appointment Book: Go to the Appointment Book and look at the Setup menu, i.e.

Setup->General, Setup->Providers Weekly Schedule, etc. This will be covered in

a later section.

• 3rd Party Links: Links menu and/or by right clicking the ‘linking’ application and

going to Settings/Setup (these run in the taskbar notification area near your

date/time). For example, Medicare Online is Links->Configure Online Claiming,

but also has settings in the linking application that runs in the taskbar notification

area. More information will be provided in the documentation pertaining to these

modules.

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Management Tasks

Users & Security

1. Please note, you must be an admin level user in Medilink to make these changes. Click

Admin->User Management.

2. From here you can add users, edit users, reset user passwords, and set users to various

levels. Note you cannot delete users, (you must set them to inactive).

3. Many practices elect not to enforce security instead relying on Windows OS security. We

do not recommend this, however if you wish, you should set the default new user level to

be the level 4 admin, and allow auto create new users, (every time someone types in a

new username when they login, they will automatically be created as an admin).

4. If you are registered for the add-on module that allows restricting users by provider,

highlight the names of similar users and click Set Providers to configure the providers

that those users will have access to. Note, the system is inclusive by default, you must

set users to have access to some providers in order to restrict access to other providers.

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Practices, Providers & Referrers

Practices

1. Go to File->Change Details->Edit Lists, and choose Practices from the drop down list.

2. Add/edit/delete these as necessary.

3. Note, this is just a simple list of locations where your providers will be working from;

however there must be one primary practice (billing location) which is where your

Medilink database resides, and where all correspondence will be sent.

Providers

1. Go to File->Change Details->Provider Details.

2. From here you can add/edit providers, and also add/edit the practice/locations where

they will be working from by pressing the little plus next to their name.

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3. Note that typically each location that a provider will work from will have mean that he/she

has to obtain another provider number for that location. All providers will have a 6 digit

provider number stem, and the last 2 characters just change depending on these

different locations. If you are unsure you should discuss this with Medicare directly.

Please also note, you cannot delete providers, (you can remove them, but they will be

retained for reporting purposes and can be reactivated if necessary).

Referrers

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1. File->Change Details->Referring Doctors. From here you can add and edit and delete

(really just hide), referring providers.

2. Please note you should avoid altering the provider number of a referring provider where

possible. We recommend creating a new referring provider if/when the provider changes

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their location and ‘deleting’ the old ones, (this doesn’t really delete them it just hides

them).

Item Numbers

1. Before you can bill you need to configure your item numbers. We suggest that you only

add the items that you will use in to your system as this gives you much tighter control

over what staff can bill and the fees that you have to manually set rates for.

2. You can add/edit items by clicking on the Item Fees button on File->Change Details-

>Item Numbers. Alternatively you can alter them from the billing screen(s) by pressing

the List button (immediately under the Item Number field).

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3. From here you can add/edit items. You can also deactivate items but not delete them.

4. If you are adding/editing an item you must fill in an item number, brief description and a

rate, (we suggest the U column). There are some considerations to take regarding the

column rates:

a. For private invoicing you can charge whatever amount you like, but the U column

will be the default unless another default specified in the patient setup.

b. For Medicare/DVA invoicing by default it will be the H/M/S/V/L/R column(s).

These are special columns, do not set them manually unless you are sure of the

rate, as the fee updater will overwrite these values anyway.

c. Funds have their own agreement/scheme rates, (for medical this is almost

exclusively for in-patient services), often called No Gap or something to that

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effect. Historically some practices have manually used a specific letter to

correspond to a fund, and just manually updated these. The preferred method

however is to use the fund area to modify these rates, and that is where the fee

updater will put these.

Banking

1. At the end of each day you should be producing banking reports and clearing your

outstanding banking, (i.e. ‘banking’ what you have). Click the Banking button or go to

Admin->Banking.

2. You can choose to perform the banking for a specific provider/practice/banking group, or

all providers/practices. It is recommended to first run a Show Outstanding Only report

rather than Show & Clear Outstanding; just review the outstanding banking report and

if/when you’re happy with it, then run it again as a Show & Clear.

3. Once you run the clear report, it will produce a run number. You can take this report with

you to the bank to streamline the process.

4. If you even need to run a report for a date range or review a specific run, use Show All

Banking and then fill in the date range or click the run you want to review.

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Common Tasks

Patient & Account

Add/Edit Patient

1. Click Search and type in a surname. You must search first even when adding a new

patient, this is to minimise duplicates.

2. If you do not find the patient click New, and fill in some basic details and then click one

of the account attachement options. For adding new family and third party accounts, see

the Add/Edit Account and Attach Patient To Alternate Account sections.

3. Once you are in the full edit account screen, make the changes you need and click OK.

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4. Please note, the account section at the top of the edit patient screen determines what

type of billing and what rates are charged for this patient by default, (i.e. what the Invoice

button will do, and what the rate is if it is not specified when billing privately).

Add/Edit Account

1. This screen will show if you are creating a new account when attaching a patient to an

account. Alternatively click Reception->Edit Account Details when you have the account

you want to edit on screen.

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2. Make the changes as necessary and click OK.

Attach Patient to Alternate Account

1. Edit the Patient.

2. Click Attach To and preferably transfer, (duplicate means that you are keeping the

patient on the old account as well as the new one; ideally you put the patient on one

account at a time only to avoid confusion).

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3. You will then be prompted to search for the account. Choose one and click OK.

Alternatively you can create a new account here too, (instructions for add/edit account

will be in another section).

Account Claiming Options

1. Edit the account (Reception->Edit Account Details).

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2. Choose the appropriate claiming options at the bottom of the screen. Also, if this is a

family account, highlight the patient you want and click Set As Claimant.

Referral

1. Click Reception->Patient Referrals. Add/edit/delete referrals as necessary.

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2. Please note, the date in the referral is the referral letter date. However the expiry of a

referral is dependent on the start of the referral rather than the letter date. This start date

is automatically calculated based on the first service where this referral is used. If there

is no service, the system will calculate expiry by adding the period to the current system

date, (for display purposes only).

Patient Verification

Medicare/Concession

1. Bring up patient or click appointment and click PVM Medicare button (or Online->OPV –

Medicare from menu).

2. You can select a provider and date of service if you wish. To perform concession

validation you should also tick the CEV tick box, (note they must have a valid concession

card filled out in the patient details screen).

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3. Click PVM Medicare to perform verification.

4. Wait for the process to complete, when it has, the messages in the middle will change

depending on the outcome. In some cases you will be able to update the patient details

using the return information by pressing Update Medilink. We recommend reviewing

these changes though rather than being in the habit of always clicking Update Medilink

(which is unnecessary if there is no advice suggesting any changes).

DVA

1. Bring up patient or click appointment and click PVV Veteran button (or Online->OVV –

Veteran Affairs from menu).

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2. Fill in the patient DVA alias if necessary. You can also select a provider if you wish.

3. Click PVV Veteran to perform verification.

4. Wait for the process to complete, when it has, the messages in the middle will change

depending on the outcome. In some cases you will be able to update the patient details

using the return information by pressing Update Medilink, this may include the DVA card

type. We recommend reviewing these changes though rather than being in the habit of

always clicking Update Medilink (which is unnecessary if there is no advice suggesting

any changes). Please also note, you can validate veterans without a DVA card, (just

leave that field blank in the patient screen).

Funds

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1. Bring up patient or click appointment and click PVF Fund button (or Online->OPV – Fund

from menu).

2. You may not have any funds populated in the list, please click Get Participating Funds if

you do not, and wait for this to finish, (you only really have to do this once every so often

to ensure your fund list is up to date).

3. Make sure the fund code, membership number, UPI (which # that patient is on the card),

and the fund alias are all filled in. While it is optional, you really should select a provider

for fund verification, (this will be important later when billing). To perform Medicare

validation you should also tick the OPV (PVF+PVM) tick box and fill in the earliest date

of service if necessary.

4. Click PVF Fund to perform verification.

5. Wait for the process to complete, when it has, the messages at the bottom will change

depending on the outcome.

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Enterprise Verification

1. Also known as mass verification, these features are for verifying up to 1000 patients per

batch of verification claims. They are not real time, you must generate the ‘batch’ and

send it in; a response will come back within 72 hours. They are accessible from the

Medicare Online icon in the taskbar notification area, click EPV/ECV/EVV depending on

your requirement, add patients, and click Go to send the claim.

2. A couple of days later, (usually less), you will be able to get a detailed report back from

Medicare by clicking on the EPV/ECV/EVV Reports area and requesting a Status

Request & if complete, a Report.

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Appointments

Note that all tasks in this section are performed from the appointment book unless otherwise

specified.

Provider Schedule

1. Setup->Providers Weekly Schedule.

2. Choose the provider you want from the drop-down list.

3. If you’re create a schedule that will start later, type in the date in the Offset Weeks From

section, (this will just cycle the display to the appropriate week).

4. If you just want to edit/delete a schedule, click on it and click edit or delete. If you want to

create a new schedule either click Add and fill in the details, or click and drag to highlight

the appropriate area.

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5. If you are adding or editing a schedule you will now see the Setup Schedule screen.

Make the appropriate changes and click Ok. Note that if you want a one-off schedule

that the expiry date should be the same date, (just copy and paste the start date in to the

expiry date).

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6. If you have deleted a schedule but then realized it was a mistake, just put it back in.

Deleting schedules does not actually delete appointments, and they will pop back up

once you recreate the schedule again.

Add/Edit Appointment

1. Highlight a blank spot in the appointment book and click Add or click and existing

appointment and click Edit. Alternatively you can do this from the Appointment menu,

Add New Patient Appointment, Edit or Add Non-Patient Appointment (the latter just is

basically just for adding notes in the appointment book).

2. If you are adding a new appointment, you will have to search for them first, (and you can

go through the whole new patient creation process here; please refer to that section). If

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you elect not to add a new patient now you can still proceed and will just be prompted to

fill in the details when the patient arrives.

3. You will now see the Edit Appointment screen, fill in the fields as appropriate.

Delete Appointment

1. Highlight the appointment you want to delete and click Delete or press the Del key.

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Copy/Move Appointment

1. Highlight the appointment you want to Copy/Move and click Copy or Move, or use Ctrl+C

for Copy, Ctrl+X for Move (i.e. cut).

2. Go to the slot you want to place the appointment and click Paste or Ctrl+V.

Appointment Status

1. You should progress the status of an appointment to reflect the current action/activity

required. This can be done by highlighting an appointment and clicking the appropriate

button, or by simply right clicking on an appointment. Here are the statuses in order:

a. - Appointment created.

b. - Appointment confirmed. The patient will have called or sent an email or

used the SMS system to automatically do this.

c. - Patient arrived, waiting. At this step you will be able to confirm various

current details with the patient.

d. - Patient with provider.

e. - Patient finished with provider. At this step some providers will add a note

here for receptionist to bill. Alternatively this will trigger the actual billing screen,

(depending on setup of the schedule).

f. - Complete/DNA. Some use it to flag that the appointment is now complete,

(i.e. billing done after the patient finished with provider). Some practices use this

to represent a patient who did not attend. Historically there’s been a mix of both

so there’s no real ‘rule’ here and Medilink tries to cater for both usages in

interfaces/various reports.

g. - Appointment cancelled. Setting this status may at first not seem very useful

as you will probably end up deleting these to fit in a new appointment in the slot;

however, if you do set this status then at least this action will be logged should

you later wish to review what occurred. Using the double wide schedules can

also help alleviate the need to delete these, and you can also search for these

using the Search Cancelled button.

2. There are other statuses including:

a. - Non-patient appointment, AKA a note appointment.

b. - SMS appointment reminder created.

c. - SMS appointment reminder sent (acknowledged by SMS vendor).

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d. - Review letter written. A provider may dictate a letter and a typist will produce

these and then the doctor goes through and reviews the appointments marked as

R.

e. - Letter written (if using the reviews process this means it has been

reviewed).

Review Patient Appointments

1. Highlight a patient appointment and click Search to bring up the appointment search.

2. The current patient will already be selected, (you can choose new patient though if you

want). Choose the type of searching you want, (i.e. All Dates), and click Search. You can

also elect to narrow the search to a specific provider from this screen.

3. This will now show you a list of that patient’s appointments based on the criteria

selected. You can double click them to move the appointment book to that particular

appointment.

Billing

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Private Billing

Invoice

1. Bring up the patient and click Reception->Invoice->Private Invoicing.

2. Fill in the item numbers with service dates and codes as appropriate.

3. There are various options here regards how the invoice prints, (Crystal report style, extra

patient details to show on the invoice etc.), whether a manual Medicare claim form is

printed, if the invoice is to be deferred.

Receipt

1. Bring up the patient on screen and click Receipt (or Reception->Private Receipting or

CTRL+R). Fill in the amount you want paid for each service and click Pay, (or click Pay

All to pay all of them).

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2. Once done, click the Payment button in the bottom right hand corner to proceed to the

Payment Details screen; and fill in those details as necessary. See below for more

information regards Integrated EFTPOS.

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Integrated EFTPOS

1. If you want to use Integrated EFTPOS make sure the integrated EFTPOS tick is on in

the payment details screen when receipting, (this also applies to Cash Consultations).

Go through the on-screen steps for the integrated EFTPOS solution you are using.

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Cash Consultation

1. A cash consultation is just a combination of a private invoice and receipt in the one. Click

Reception->Cash Consultation and bill the patient out as you have previously for other

invoices.

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2. Once you click OK you will be taken to the Payment Details screen. As for a Private

Receipt, fill out the details as necessary. If you want to only charge the patient a portion

of the amount owing, simply type in the amount they are paying and tick Patient

Contribution.

Quote

1. Bring up the patient and click Reception->Invoice->Private Invoicing.

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2. Fill in the item numbers with service dates and codes as appropriate.

3. Click the Quote button.

Prepayment

1. A prepayment is like a cash consultation except that you are billing for a future service.

Click Reception->Private Invoice and bill the patient out for said future service, (or you

can use a generic item number like ‘PREPAY’ or something to that effect).

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2. Once you click Prepay you will be taken to the Payment Details screen. As for a Private

Receipt, fill out the details as necessary.

3. The patient’s current account will now have a credit attached to the account. Be aware

that credits have ownership rules, i.e. they are ‘owned’ by a particular provider & practice

for a particular account & patient. You can configure provider/practice credit sharing and

some account types allow credit sharing by default for example family accounts.

Apply Credit

1. If you have an account with credit, go through the normal Receipt steps, and you will be

prompted to apply the credit instead.

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2. Please note, it can be difficult to un-apply credit, (need to use a utility).

Corrections

1. Click Corrections and then Private Invoice. This actually brings up the Receipt screen,

and in fact you can perform private invoice corrections while receipting. Type in the

amount you want to correct for each service, and then press Correction. Give a basic

reason for the correction.

2. From this screen you can also perform discount and bad debt corrections in the same

manner, (press the Bad Debt or Discount button instead of Correction). They are all

more or less the same thing, you are writing off all/part of a service that was billed for

some reason.

Refunds

There are 2 basic types of refunds, where you are reversing a receipt for services already

rendered, (i.e. perhaps you have billed incorrectly), or you are refunding credit, (i.e. the patient

is not going to have the services performed any more).

Reverse Receipt

1. Go to Reception->Corrections and click Reverse Receipt, and type in the receipt number

(aka invoice number). Alternatively use the Copies interface, highlight the receipt and

click Reverse.

2. A reverse receipt doesn’t print patient advice, it’s up to you to make the corrections and

re-bill/re-receipt as appropriate.

Refund Credit

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1. Go to Reception->Refund Credit. Fill in the details as necessary and click OK.

2. You can print refund advice for the patient if necessary.

Medicare Online Patient Claims

1. Note, for In-Hospital patient claims, refer to the ECLIPSE section. To create a Medicare

Patient Claim first make sure that the account you are billing for is set up for Medicare

Patient Claiming. Edit the Account, tick on the Medicare Online option, make sure a

claimant is set if applicable, and configure the rebate options, (pay by cheque to address

held at Medicare is the preferred option – if they have registered bank details with

Medicare then money will be paid via EFT regardless).

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2. Then go in to the Cash Consult screen for fully paid or part paid claims, or Private

Invoice screen for non-paid claims. Fill in the services as needed.

3. For fully or part paid claims you will be prompted for payment, (i.e. as per normal for a

Cash Consultation). For fully paid claims you must type in the amount equal to the total

charged amount; part paid claims you should type in the partial amount and click Patient

Contribution. When finished, press OK, and the claim will be sent.

4. Once the claim has been assessed you will have a Statement of Claim and Benefit

Payment or Lodgement Advice print out. Take a quick look at the advice, and then give it

to the patient; it will describe if the claim has been assessed and what the benefit was

and/or what Medicare intend to do with the claim.

5. If the claim has been rejected for a reason that you may elect to fix on the spot, you

should correct and re-bill/claim for the patient. Alternatively you may elect to give them a

standard invoice/receipt and instruct the patient to take it to Medicare themselves.

Medicare Easyclaim Patient Claims

1. Go in to the Cash Consult screen for fully paid or part paid claims, or Private Invoice

screen for non-paid claims. Tick on Easyclaim and full/part/unpaid as necessary. Fill in

the services as needed. Note that description (service text) is not transmitted and you

should use the special Easyclaim drop-downs and text boxes, (i.e. Item Override, Self

Deemed, LSPN, SCP Id, Equip Id, and Restrictive Override).

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2. For fully or part paid claims you will be prompted for payment, (i.e. as per normal for a

Cash Consultation). For fully paid claims you must type in the amount equal to the total

charged amount; part paid claims you should type in the partial amount and click Patient

Contribution. When finished, press OK, and the claim will be sent.

3. Once the claim has been assessed you will have a print out on the EFTPOS terminal.

Take a quick look at the advice, and then give it to the patient; it will describe if the claim

has been assessed and what the benefit was and/or what Medicare intend to do with the

claim.

4. If the claim has been rejected for a reason that you may elect to fix on the spot, you

should correct and re-bill/claim for the patient. Alternatively you may elect to give them a

standard invoice/receipt and instruct the patient to take it to Medicare themselves. Also

please note, if you charged the patient using Integrated EFTPOS (which is common for

Easyclaim users) it can be easy to accidentally charge the patient a second time if you

are not careful. All you need to do is un-tick the Integrated EFTPOS option the second

time, (although you should be prompted and this should happen automatically; just be

aware).

Bulk Billing

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Medicare Invoice

1. To perform a Medicare Bulk Bill, click Reception->Invoice->Medicare Invoicing.

2. Fill in the details much as you would for a normal invoice. If it’s for Medicare Online

claiming make sure that the Online tick box is on.

Veteran Affairs Invoice

1. To perform a Veteran Affairs Bulk Bill, click Reception->Invoice->Vet Affairs Invoicing.

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2. Fill in the details much as you would for a normal invoice. If it’s for Medicare Online

claiming make sure that the Online tick box is on. Note, you can perform DVA Allied

Health claims from this same interface, (the determining fact is the item numbers you bill

and/or the practice type you have chosen).

Easyclaim Bulk Bill

1. To perform an Easyclaim Bulk Bill, click Reception->Invoice->Private Billing, then

choose Easyclaim and Bulk Bill (down the bottom of the invoice screen):

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2. Bill as normal although note that description (service text) is not transmitted and you

should use the special Easyclaim drop-downs and text boxes, (i.e. Item Override, Self

Deemed, LSPN, SCP Id, Equip Id, and Restrictive Override).

3. The claim will be assessed on the spot and if successful it will be saved.

4. Refer to the Easyclaim Bulk Bill Processing section for more information.

Corrections

1. Click Corrections Medicare Corrections or Vet Affairs Corrections (or Private for

Easyclaim Bulk Bill). Toggle the services you want to correct out.

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2. Please note, you cannot partially correct Medicare/Vet Affair bulk bill services. You must

fully correct and re-bill them.

Batching

1. Go in to the Medicare Online Control Centre (Online->Medicare Online), and find the

batching section in the top left hand corner, (alternatively use Office->Medicare Batching

or Vet Affairs Batching). Click Medicare or Vet Affairs to create a batch. Note that

batching does not apply to Easyclaim bulk billing.

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2. The system will automatically find billings to be batched and automatically assign a

batch number; in almost all cases you should leave these all as defaults. Click the Batch

80 (invoices) button to simply batch all services ready to be batched, or alternatively

double click the individual invoices to include/remove them from the batch you are

creating, and click OK when you are done.

3. Repeat this if you have more services than can fit in the one batch or multiple providers,

(which must be in separate batches).

Batch Processing

1. First we are going to send the batch(es). This is sometimes referred to as forwarding or

transmitting. Go in to the Medicare Online Control Centre (Online->Medicare Online),

and click Step 1. Forward. This sends all currently stored bulk bill batches and patient

claims to Medicare. If you would like you can use view these in the Stored / Forwarded

folders by using the buttons on the right of that screen.

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2. Next we will receive the bulk bill reports back. Report won’t be ready straight away,

usually it’s a couple of days; but if you’re just going through this process, try it now

anyway. Click Step 2. Receive.

3. After reports have been received you will likely be prompted to ‘Process’ the reports; you

can do this by clicking Step 3. Process anyway. This screen shows the batch reports

ready to be processed. Processing involves the system automatically receipting and

adjusting services claimed based on what Medicare has advised in the reports. Basically

all you need to do in this screen is click OK. Please note, you can actually manually

process a batch via Office->Medicare Payments or Vet Affairs Payments, but we do not

recommend this for online batches.

4. Once you have been through the above steps you should go through the Processing

Report that shows, re-billing services where applicable.

Easyclaim Bulk Bill Processing

First a little background - putting through bulk bill claims via Easyclaim has added complexity in

that even though a claim may have been successful assessed and benefit printed ‘on-the-spot’,

Medicare re-assess claims overnight and can reject, resulting in non-payment of claims.

In older versions of Medilink we had no way of reporting on these - the system would

(optionally) automatically receipt successful claims but then it was up to users to review the

Medicare HPOS system to see which claims were rejected, and reverse receipts/adjust claims

manually.

We now have an integrated system for reporting on Easyclaim bulk bills which Medicare calls

BIR, and the below sections cover its use.

Receive & Process

Existing users are likely familiar with the batch, forward, receive, process steps with Medicare

Online bulk billing, and in effect the same steps also need to take place for Easyclaim bulk

billing. However, because Easyclaim bulk billing sends on the spot batching and forwarding are

not necessary, so we only need to concern ourselves with receiving and processing BIR reports.

To receive and process, go to the Medicare Online Control Centre and click “Receive & Process

Unprocessed BIR Reports”:

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This looks at all of your Easyclaim bulk bills that are yet to be received & processed, requests

the reports from Medicare, and if they are available it performs processing - receipting/adjusting

claims in Medilink.

Note as at the time of writing, only the last 6 months-worth of reports are made available by

Medicare.

If you have previously manually paid a claim in Medilink it will only apply processing where the

amount that Medicare advises was paid differs from the amount you have already manually

paid. It will automatically correct out your previous payment/adjustment in this scenario (to

ensure it balances).

The first time that you run this it may take a while – but subsequent runs should be much

quicker.

At the end you will be shown a screen with the BIR report, see below.

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BIR Report Viewer

The BIR Report Viewer shows the reports ‘as is’ we receive them from Medicare.

The fields are more or less self-explanatory but please note:

• The print and export buttons are at the top of the grid.

• The MCOL Claim Id and MCOL Tran Id are identifiers used behind the scenes and won’t

be relevant to anything within Medilink, (although may be handy when discussing with

Medicare operators).

• There may be blank fields, especially in the processing report. Medicare will leave a lot

of fields blank where the claim is paid in full with no modifications. Check the Claim

Benefit field to see what was paid.

Easyclaim Bulk Bill Review

There are times where you’ll want to review your Easyclaim bulk bills. While you can use the

Audit Trail etc., we have created a special screen for reviewing them, plus added a few utilities

in there.

This will be handy in the changeover period from not having BIR.

To view this screen right click on the Medilink Medicare Online icon in the taskbar notification

area and click BIR – ECBB Review:

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You will see the following:

As per the BIR Viewer, most fields are self-explanatory, but take note of:

• The print and export buttons are at the top of the grid.

• The dates for loading data relate to the date that the Easyclaim bulk bill was transmitted

(i.e. put through the EFTPOS terminal). You can specify a greater date range than 6

months, and it will load them in this list and you can perform actions using the buttons

(see below for button action descriptions), but you won’t be able to get BIR reports for

claims that are older so they will need manual payment/reversal etc.

• To select a row, click the box on the left hand side of the row. To highlight multiple rows

hold the control or shift keys. (Note this works the same way as Excel).

• MCOL Transaction Id is an internal Medicare identifier.

• The claim benefit paid relates to this specific claim for this patient.

• The deposit amount may be blank even though it was paid and/or it may be much higher

than the claim benefit paid. This is due to the way in which Medicare report deposits – it

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may actually be representing a payment for multiple claims. On the plus side, by listing

the deposit amount just once per deposit, if you tally the column you will get an accurate

total. This logic also applies to the Paid Date and Acct Name fields.

• Processed means that it has obtained a BIR report and run through the Medilink

processing system at least once.

• Balanced means that the amounts invoiced and receipted in Medilink balance out, and if

a BIR report is available that they match the benefit that Medicare has advised (if no BIR

is available it only checks that the invoiced & receipted amounts balance).

Retrieve & Process All Unprocesseds

This does the same as the “Receive & Process Unprocessed BIR Reports” in Medilink or “BIR –

Receive” from the Medicare Online menu. See the Receive & Process section above for more

information.

Re-Process Unbalanceds In List

This goes through your currently loaded list of Easyclaim bulk bills and searches for ones that

are unbalanced, (invoiced and receipted don’t balance and/or if BIR available the claim benefit

doesn’t match receipted). Then it re-retrieves BIR reports and re-processes them (see Receive

& Process for description).

(Re-)Retrieve & Process Selected Rows

Similar to Re-Process Unbalanceds above, but instead it processes the rows you have selected.

View BIRs Selected Rows

Shows the BIR Viewer for the rows you have selected.

Revert Pay Selected Rows

In some cases you may have manually receipted or adjusted Easyclaim bulk bills but later find

that Medicare didn’t pay them etc., and now it’s past the 6 month period so you can’t receive a

BIR report. In this case you can use this tool to ‘unpay’ the rows you select.

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Unpaying will apply reverse receipts/reverse corrections on items previously performed and get

the claim back to an unpaid state.

You will have the option of applying these reversals as at the date of the original

receipt/adjustment. This means they won’t show in today’s audit trail or banking. This is

somewhat controversial as it allows you to change historic data, but because the community is

largely split on the way they want these transactions applied (many *do* want to backdate), and

that we have allowed this to occur in previous MCOL Bulk Bill & ECLIPSE utilities); we have

allowed the option. We log the date and time and username of the action in the database

regardless (date and time can be seen in Invoice Copies).

If you are unsure, choose No.

Manually Pay Unpaid Selected Rows

This applies full payment to the selected rows that are unpaid. This is helpful where you may

have not had the old auto-payment Easyclaim bulk bill option on and the claims are too old for

BIR, so you are using HPOS or some paper advice from Medicare to manually perform

payment.

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ECLIPSE

The ECLIPSE features are all within the ECLIPSE screen so all of the notes in this section

pertain to this screen. Bring up a patient on screen and click ECLIPSE. Please also note, the

term hospital is largely interchangeable with day surgery for the purposes of claiming in

Medilink.

Setup

1. Click Add Hospital (Practice). Click the drop down box and choose Practices. Add in the

names of the hospitals here (don’t add them twice if they are already added).

2. Click Set Facility Id. Go through each hospital in your list and add the Facility Id.

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3. Click Setup Hospital Provider. Basically you just need to make sure that the hospital

locations are set as practices underneath each provider, along with the correct provider

number for each location. See the Providers setup section for more information.

4. Click Setup Provider Fund. This is for setting up the arrangements that each provider

has with each fund. This means you may end up doing this many, many times; it’s often

a good idea to do it *every* time you claim for at least the first few months of using the

system. The provider and practice that is selected in the top right area of the ECLIPSE

screen is the one that is automatically chosen here, then you need to choose a fund

from the list, and setup the fund arrangements.

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5. Click Set Hospital Contact. Fill in the practice manager/accounts manager for your

practice here.

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Verification

1. In almost all cases, you must verify your patient’s Medicare and Fund details before

doing IMC claims. You can do this from within the ECLIPSE screen by clicking the PVM

and PVF buttons. Please refer the Patient Verification section for more information.

Admission

1. Look in the top left hand corner of the ECLIPSE screen for the Hospital Admissions.

2. You can Add/Edit admissions from here. If you have no billing for an admission you can

also delete it, (once you have billing though, you cannot delete the admission).

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IMC

1. An IMC is an In-hospital Medical Claim. You must have gone through all of the relevant

setup, verification and admission before you can bill an IMC. You may be prompted to

do IMC billing from the invoice button/appointment book billing area; but only the

ECLIPSE screen can display the status of the IMC so for the purposes of demonstration

we will be assuming you are there. Click IMC Invoice.

2. Fill in the services as necessary. Be aware that you can only bill services with the

asterisk modifier (in-hospital).

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3. After submitting an IMC, it is often a good idea to perform a status check straight away.

This will ensure that the IMC has been transmitted successfully, (i.e. it will say

MEDICARE_ASSESSING).

OEC

1. An OEC is an Online Eligibility Claim, ostensibly it is a quote that is a precursor to an

IMC. You must have gone through all of the relevant setup, verification and admission

before you can do an OEC. Click OEC Quote.

2. Fill in the services as necessary. Be aware that you can only bill services with the

asterisk modifier (in-hospital).

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3. After submitting an OEC, the system will automatically check the status of and produce a

report on the OEC for you to give to the patient.

4. An OEC can later be converted in to an IMC by highlighting it and pressing IMC Invoice,

(you will be asked if you want to convert this OEC in to an IMC). This saves you time,

but you must ensure that all of the details are still correct in the invoicing screen before

pressing OK.

IMC/OEC Status Check & Report

1. Highlight the IMC/OEC you want to check in the top right hand section of the ECLIPSE

screen.

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2. Click Check Status. This will update the Messages column, (i.e.

ASSESSING/REJECTED/COMPLETE).

3. Once COMPLETE, you can retrieve the report by clicking the Request/Duplicate Report

button, (note: this will happen automatically if you have the Request Report After

COMPLETE Status Check option on). The report will fill the area in the bottom left of the

ECLIPSE screen, telling you what has hasn’t been paid, and also the bottom right of the

ECLIPSE screen will contain the receipted amounts.

4. If a fund has rejected an IMC, unlike bulk billing, the Medilink system does not

automatically adjust the batch. This is because ECLIPSE billing is considered as Private

Billing in the Medilink system. So if your intention is to correct the billing out (i.e. to re-bill

it), all you need to do is do a standard Private Correction. You can also print out the

claim as an invoice by going in to Copies and pressing Duplicate.

Bulk IMC/OEC Status Check & Report

1. Right-click the Medicare Online app in the taskbar notification area and go to the

IMC/OEC Bulk Status/Report area.

2. From here you can perform bulk status checks, or bulk report retrieval, and print the

reports from this interface.

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IHC

1. IHC is an In-Hospital Claim (i.e. non-medical, although there may be a medical

component to it). This is an advanced feature for experienced personnel only, in-depth

guides on the fields involved can be obtained from Medicare/industry organisations,

(please ask us for more information). In Medilink IHCs are decoupled from the billing

logic and are purely for claiming and HCP reporting purposes. That means that anything

that you claim via IHC *must* be manually billed/receipted. Right click the Medicare

Online app in the taskbar notification area and choose IHC Requests. A list of all recent

IHCs will show.

2. From this interface you can do everything pertaining to IHCs; create new, resubmit

(adjustment/supplement or just a copy), delete, check status and reports.

3. Creating/resubmitting/viewing an IHC will bring up the IHC Request dialog. This dialog

needs to be filled out as appropriate. You can validate the claim, save it (to come back

later), or submit it.

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4. Going back to the list of IHCs you can mass status check and report by highlighting

multiple columns (or using the date range for status checks). Once you have obtained

reports they will appear on screen, (and/or you can highlight these rows again and click

Request Report and it will prompt you if you want to re-request or just show them).

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5. The report is interactive, that means that the row selected in the top section determines

what is displayed in the middle section, and what is selected in the middle section

determines what shows in the bottom section. Also note, as previously discussed, IHCs

in Medilink do not affect your billing, you must manually bill and receipt these claims

where necessary.

ACIR

Ancillary Provider

1. Right click the Medicare Online icon in the taskbar notification area and choose ACIR

Ancillary Providers. This brings up a list of your ancillary providers, allowing you to

add/edit them.

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2. Click New/Edit to create/edit an ancillary provider. From there you can fill in their basic

details.

ACIR Claims

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1. Right-click on the Medicare Online icon in the taskbar notification area and choose ACIR

Claims. This will show a list of all current ACIR claims, (you can adjust the date range

and refresh to see others).

2. From here you can add claims and view reports. We will Add (a) Claim now.

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3. From this screen you can add/edit/delete encounters and episodes.

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4. Some time after submission you can retrieve reports on your ACIR claim. Click the View

Reports area in the list of ACIR Claims – if a report has not been retrieved already the

system will automatically attempt to retrieve one and display it.

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5. Please note, ACIR in Medilink is for reporting purposes only.

Letters

1. Bring up a patient on screen and click the Letters button, and choose a Referrer (this is

the primary individual you are addressing the letter to). You will now see a list that may

include previous letters.

2. Click New to create a new letter. It will ask for a template code; if you are unsure about

your template codes choose ‘A’ (you can modify Medilink32bnt\Letters\MainA.DOC to

alter this template). If prompted about carbon copies, you can tick on other referrers as

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necessary. Give it a few seconds and a letter will be produced for you, (check to see if a

big blue W is flashing in your taskbar if it does not come up on screen).

3. Now it’s just a matter of typing in the rest of your letter and pressing Save in Microsoft

Word. Close the document when you are done, and you will see it in the list of Letters in

Medilink, and you can open/print/delete them from there.

Secure Letters

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1. The various Secure Letter providers will be able to provide you with a Word Plugin. Use

this functionality to send your letters. For inbound secure letters Medilink will initially help

configure your Medical Objects, ReferralNet, etc. inbound messaging system and/or you

should use the in-built viewer for these products.

SMS Reminders

1. Medilink will help setup and configure your SMS reminders initially. All you need to do is

monitor them and/or generate them if you are not using the automated schedule. To

generate an SMS, highlight a patient in the appointment book and click Quick SMS, (or

click SMS and choose Bulk if you want to send all appointments for that day).

2. Technically, this just generates the SMS, it doesn’t actually send it. There will be a little

Medilink SMS icon in your taskbar notification area that automatically performs a

send/receive periodically; but if you need to you can right-click that icon and choose

Send/Receive Now. When an SMS is ‘sent’ it will turn the appointment status to a white

dot. Once Medilink receives information from the SMS provider that it has been sent, it

will turn white/green. If you’re using 2-way confirmations and the patient has replied OK

then it will turn to a blue C. See the Appointment Status section for more information.

Otherwise, you may like to review the SMS messages that have gone in/out, right-click

the Medilink SMS icon in the taskbar notification area and choose SMS Review.

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EHR & Results

The guide for EHR & Results is available separately.

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Appendix

Billing Codes

There are various codes that can be entered when billing that set various flags or values for

transmission via Medicare Online. Some of these can be chosen from tick box or other options,

others from the Code drop-down menu when billing, however, ultimately they are stored in the

service text (and can be inputted in this manner where necessary). They are as follows:

Name Code Format/Length

Referral Emergency REFEMERG N/A

Referral Lost REFLOST N/A

Referral In Hospital REFINHOSP N/A

Referral Not Required REFNOTREQ N/A

Referral Remote Exemption 1 REFREMEXMP N/A

Referral Remote Exemption 2 REFREMEXMPT N/A

Request Grandfathering Provisions REFGFATHER N/A

Request Verbal REFVERBAL N/A

Rule 3 Exempt 1 RULE3EXEMPTIND N/A

Rule 3 Exempt 2 RULE3EXEMPT N/A

S4B3 Exempt 1 S4B3EXEMPTIND N/A

S4B3 Exempt 2 S4B3EXEMPT N/A

Not Normal Aftercare NNAC N/A

Normal Aftercare NAC N/A

Duplicate Service DUPSRV N/A

Not Duplicate Service NOTDUPSRV N/A

Time Dependant TIMEDEP N/A

Not Time Dependant NOTTIMEDEP N/A

Multiple Procedure MULTPROC N/A

Not Multiple Procedure NMULTPROC N/A

Self Deemed 1 SELFDEEM N/A

Self Deemed 2 SELF DEEM N/A

Self Deemed 3 SELFDEEMED N/A

Self Deemed 4 SELF DEEME N/A

Self Deemed 5 SELF DEEMED N/A

Self Deemed 6 SELFDEE N/A

Not Self Deemed NSELFDEEM N/A

Substituted Service SUBSERV N/A

Separate Sites 1 SEPSITE N/A

Separate Sites 2 SEPSITES N/A

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Not Related NOTREL N/A

Not For Comparison NOTCOMP N/A

Misc. Code List Service Code Type Code MISCCLSCTC N/A

Prosthetics Service Code Type Code PROSSCTC N/A

Accident ACCIDENTIND N/A

Emergency Admission EMERGADM N/A

Pre Existing Ailment Request PEAIND N/A

ADL Cognitive Behavioural ADLCOGBEH N/A

ADL Eating ADLEAT N/A

ADL Personal Hygiene ADLPERHYG N/A

ADL Toileting Continence ADLTOICON N/A

ADL Transfer Mobility ADLTRAMOB N/A

Carer CARER N/A

Lives Alone LIVESALONE N/A

Second Device SECDEV N/A

Not Second Device NOTSECDEV N/A

Accession Date Time ACCESSIONDATETIME= ddMMyyyyHHmm

Collection Date Time COLLECTIONDATETIME= ddMMyyyyHHmm

Accident Date ACCIDENTDATE= ddMMyyyy

Start Date Break In Episode STARTBREAKEP= ddMMyyyy

Admission Date ADMDATE= ddMMyyyy

Discharge Date DISDATE= ddMMyyyy

End Date Break In Episode ENDBREAKEP= ddMMyyyy

Number Of Patients NOPATSEEN= 2

LSPN LSPN= 6

Equipment Id 1 EQUIPMENTID= 5

Equipment Id 2 EQUIPID= 5

Field Quantity 1 FIELDQUANTITY= 2

Field Quantity 2 FQTY= 2

Distance Kilometres 1 K= 2

Distance Kilometres 2 KM= 2

Service Quantity SERVQTY= 2

ADL Tool Code ADLTOOL= 2

Break In Episode Of Care Code BREAKCARE= 2

Number Of CNC Hours CNCHRS= 5

Number Of EN Hours ENHRS= 5

Number Of NSS Hours NSSHRS= 5

Number Of RN Hours RNHRS= 5

Number Of CNC Visits CNCVSTS= 3

Number Of EN Visits ENVSTS= 3

Number Of NSS Visits NSSVSTS= 3

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Number Of RN Visits RNVSTS= 3

Number Of Teeth NUMTEETH= 2

Tooth Number TOOTHNUM= 2

SCP 1 SCPID= 5

SCP 2 LCCID= 5

Treatment Location Code String TL= 1

Upper Lower Jaw Code JAWCODE= 3

Optical Script Code OPTSCR= 2

Accepted Disability Text <AD></AD> Enter text between ><

medilink manual manual.pdfplease note you should avoid altering the provider number of a referring...

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