Medisoft Tip Of The Day- Tricks To Finding Patients In Your Database
When it comes to medical billing with Medisoft, or any other software program for that matter, efficiency is your friend. For a medical biller, there are never enough hours in the day so it's important to use Medisoft features to your advantage. You may like some features and others not, so keep what you like and leave the rest.
Here's a question clients often ask me. In transaction entry, you start typing in the chart number and then click on the dropdown to further search the list because you can't find the patient. For example, you are entering charges for Tom and Alice Morton. Start typing in MOR and you see Alice but you have to scroll way down to see Tom. In between is Denise Morgan, Edward Mortonson, Fred Morales, etc.
All chart number lookups work this way because they are sorted by chart number, not last name, first name. Medisoft creates the chart number using the first three letters of the last name, the first two letters of the first name, then 000, 001, 002, etc. For example, Alice Morton's chart is MORAL000. Because a chart number must be unique, when Alex Morgenstern gets added to the database later on, his chart number will be MORAL001.
After you have used Medisoft for a while, you will naturally look at a name and mentally convert it to the chart number. As the database grows, however, you may have difficulty finding patients simply using the chart number. At that point, it's a good idea switch to looking up patients by last name. It requires two more mouse clicks but it can save time in the long run and avoids adding duplicate chart records. (Take a look at my article on chart number repair to deal with the duplicate chart problem).
To look up patients by name:
Note: Field captions may vary depending on your version of Medisoft.
To learn more patient lookup tools, be sure to read my other articles on this subject. To find more free information to help your practice or medical billing service, visit our website at www.medical-billing-guide.com. Also, review the Medisoft training page for information about online videos and live online training.
Here's a question clients often ask me. In transaction entry, you start typing in the chart number and then click on the dropdown to further search the list because you can't find the patient. For example, you are entering charges for Tom and Alice Morton. Start typing in MOR and you see Alice but you have to scroll way down to see Tom. In between is Denise Morgan, Edward Mortonson, Fred Morales, etc.
All chart number lookups work this way because they are sorted by chart number, not last name, first name. Medisoft creates the chart number using the first three letters of the last name, the first two letters of the first name, then 000, 001, 002, etc. For example, Alice Morton's chart is MORAL000. Because a chart number must be unique, when Alex Morgenstern gets added to the database later on, his chart number will be MORAL001.
After you have used Medisoft for a while, you will naturally look at a name and mentally convert it to the chart number. As the database grows, however, you may have difficulty finding patients simply using the chart number. At that point, it's a good idea switch to looking up patients by last name. It requires two more mouse clicks but it can save time in the long run and avoids adding duplicate chart records. (Take a look at my article on chart number repair to deal with the duplicate chart problem).
To look up patients by name:
- In the Transaction Entry window, place your mouse in the Chart number field and press the F6 (function) key located at the top of the keyboard.
- This opens the Patient Lookup window containing the entire patient list. At the top of the window to the right, click the down arrow and change the Field to Last Name, First Name. (Once you have done this, the selection will remain as the default).
Note: Field captions may vary depending on your version of Medisoft.
- In the Search for field on the top left, start typing in the last name of the patient. You'll notice that the list of patients becomes limited the more you type. At this point, you can usually find the patient. If not, enter a comma after the last name, space, and the first name.
- If you make a mistake in typing, simply hit the backspace key and the patient list will repopulate.
To learn more patient lookup tools, be sure to read my other articles on this subject. To find more free information to help your practice or medical billing service, visit our website at www.medical-billing-guide.com. Also, review the Medisoft training page for information about online videos and live online training.
