February 2008 Newsletter
Appeals Process Enhanced in Patient Advocacy System
The newest version of the Patient Advocacy System (PAS), released on January 31, 2008, includes several major enhancements that accelerate the appeals process, providing for faster reimbursement and improved accuracy.
Prep Multiple Appeals
To reduce the number of calls to insurance companies and to save valuable time, patient advocates can now prepare multiple appeals when appeal requirements are initially obtained from a patient's insurance company. Appeals can then be placed on Pending status and quickly added to a patient’s case if the prior appeal is denied.
Letter Maintenance
Letter Maintenance has been enhanced to store appeal and informational letter templates for on-demand printing for individual case appeals. The following features make this new program particularly useful and efficient:
- Letters are stored directly in PAS, rather than in a local network directory, and are organized in folder directories that can be customized to clients’ needs.
- Letter components are stored by paragraph, so standard paragraphs can be used in many letters. If a paragraph is modified, the changes will appear in all compositions containing the paragraph, reducing the time spent on modifying letters individually.
- A PDF document containing supplemental information, such as benefits information, can be attached to a paragraph and will appear after the letter text when previewing and printing.
- Using the Paragraph Editor, merge fields can be inserted into letter text, and then specific values for a case, such as the patient's name or case balance, are automatically substituted when the letter is printed, reducing potential errors that could occur when patient and case data are manually entered into letters.
- Patient advocates can preview each letter in a selected format before merging and printing. If necessary, the letter text can be modified or information can be added when previewing the letter in Microsoft Word®.
State Maintenance
State maintenance is a new feature for storing external review agency contact information and Web sites by state, providing for easy access to state law requirements and decreasing the time spent on entering external review information.
The PAS Release Notes have details on these enhancements and other software changes. The release notes can be accessed directly from PAS or from the HARP Documentation link in the ASP Portal.