Organizational of EOB'S 101

[currin]

I recall a discussion on this site of an organizational bent where insurance EOB's were being scanned and saved to a desktop file to help eliminate paperwork (copying and filing of EOB's into charts).  I would really appreciate it if someone could give me the necessary information as to how to implement this....and include any possible helpful hints and pitfalls to avoid with this system. Our office is not paperless however this would go along way in  streamlining our insurance processing.

Thank you for all that you do

Deb

[bglester57]

We scan ours into patient documents.  if you will do so when posting the payment, it will show up under the patient, the account, under the insurance company, and under the insurance plan.  Just highlight the insurance payment after posting, go to side menu, select documents, scan in (ours go under EOB's) and done.

[currin]

UPDATE

We are now saving our EOB's to our desktop folder! Hip Hip Hooray no more copying and filing!  Thank you Kay for the heads up as far as how long we must keep our folders.  Seven years of paper no more just digital files!

Thank you  

Deb

[pksaari79]

I just got off the phone with Roy Shelburne at Insurance Solutions.  He says to keep all EOB's for 7 years  Anything that might relate to fraud is a 7 year policy.  

[Anon]

Thank Kay - You are the best !

[currin]

Thank you to everyone for your conversations.  We will move forward with Wendy's tip.  I really appreciate this support message board!

You are great!

Deb

[pksaari79]

Trust me, it IS time consuming to scan into each patient. We did it and so glad we switched to Wendys suggestion. When you have bulk payments, it was a pain. You have to go into each patient and thats time consuming. Wendy's system works well.....it takes less than 5 minutes to scan.plus we don't go into it that often, but nice to have when we do. Shared makes it easy for other employees to check. The 2 front desk computers have it shared and we have it on the server computer. I like that since I remote in from home a lot and on the weekend. We also put other things in the shared folder - easy to do -and that is helpful. I will be happy to discuss further to answer questions.....just let me know.

[pksaari79]

I knew you could help!!    

[Anon]

Hello 

I would NOT scan Eob's directly into SoftDent (waste of time and space)

I would create a "Shared Folder" on the network and make sure that the folder is being backed up

I would name the Folder EOB's

Sub Folder 2017

Sub Folder (one for each month of the year)

Example (a folder for each day you post insurance payments)  this will be important when looking for an EOB

after the time passes for your state (how long you need to keep these) you simply delete the folder, this will take you 1 second to do so

Scanning Tip

Arrange the days EOB's by carrier, this helps when you are looking for a specific EOB

Hope this Helps

Wendy

[drparamo]

How about EOBs that contain multiple dates of service/multiple patients?

[doctom4300]

I'm not sure about multiple patients (we don't currently scan our EOBs in), but you don't save the EOBs based on date of service, you save them based on date of posted payment. Regardless of the dates of service, all the payments for a bulk check are posted the same day.

[drcavola]

Sorry Wendy ... another question.

Why a shared folder?  Are you trying to make sure everyone has access to those EOB's from all workstations on the network?  Accessible within Softdent throughout network?  Or just accessible outside of Softdent?

[Anon]

Hello Dr. Cavola,

Actually both, your IT person can add permissions to the folder, as a safeguard to avoid the folder from accidentally being deleted.  By sharing the folder, it will be accessible to any team member working on outstanding insurance claims etc.  They can easily import the Primary EOB into NEA or do a screen capture if needed. 

Back in the day, I use to scan the EOB directly to the patient's document center, now I feel it is obsolete. 

Wendy

wendy.potts@csdental.com

814.241.2412

[drcavola]

Wendy,

Why would it be a waste of time and space?  The actual "scanning" to me is the time consumer.  Given that you are recommending scanning, why not be consistent and place the document in the patient's document tree?  Softdent defaults the ERA EOB's to go into their own catagory in the document tree.  I would LOVE for all the EOB's to be treated just like the ERA EOB's in terms of ease of input.  Now if you weren't promoting scanning, then it's a different story....

As an aside, the size of those scanned documents are about 250kb - not very large at all.  Of course, those of us "seasoned" Softdent users may have gigs, gigs, and gigs, of those on file ...

As a second aside, I am using your folder idea thoughts for end of day and end of month reports as opposed to printing them.  Still in the works.

[pksaari79]

I thought of that too. You could do the same sort of thing. Reach out to Wendy Potts for a way to implement. As I said earlier, she helped us with the EOBs.

[drcavola]

Thanks Kay, I'll do that!

[pksaari79]

Sorry, I snipped and copied to each section but it doesn't want to show.  The first one did but I don't know why when I hit add comment my visuals go away.  Any way for me to show them......for other times??

[drcavola]

Interesting ideas and thanks for sharing!

I'd love to do just that, not for EOB's, but rather for the daysheets.  Haven't quite figured out all the details yet for those tasks ...

[pksaari79]

We did that for awhile but then it crowds the system after so many years.  This is SO much easier, at least for us - to scan and to find.  It was very cumbersome and time consuming to do each EOB to each patient, esp when you have multiple entries and memory issues - ahem.  This just scans them within a few minutes and are quick to find. Plus, I understood we need to keep them after a year, so it is much easier to delete.

In the Documents folder (shared) on our desktop, you will find:

Open the 2017 folder up:

Open the month you are in:

EOBs are scanned by date.

[bayarea]

You still only need to keep the EOBs for as long as your state mandates. Years and years worth of them in the Patient Documents should be deleted "as you go" so to speak. Plus, when you have a bulk check you still only need to scan it once, you can link it to as many patients as you need.

That's why this section was made, right?! Besides the memory storage you are utilizing isn't on the computer, it's on the server. Most servers, especially these days, have more space than you will possibly ever need.

[callton]

Anyone know how long the state of WA mandates keeping EOBs?  I found WACs about dental records but it is not specific to insurance payment records.  Most companies make EOBs available online, which is where I go if I have to go back and look at an EOB (rarely).