Newsletter. A new season brings new opportunities for growth and development. News in March! View Article

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1 HOT IN MARCH 2016 TIP OF THE MONTH: Do Your Information Technology Needs Look Cloudy? View Article A new season brings new opportunities for growth and development March brings with it the first day of Spring, a great deal of college basketball and the 104th anniversary of the first time Oreo Cookies were sold in the U.S. Flowers are blooming, the days are getting a bit longer and among other things popping up this season is our Pulse Users Group Conference at the Aria Resort and Casino in Las Vegas from April Each year, our team works hard to put together a fun and engaging conference to help you get the most out of your investment with Pulse software. In addition to opportunities for one-on-one consultations with Pulse experts to get in-depth answers to your questions and valuable networking time with your peers, this year we ll host breakout sessions focusing on a wide range of topics including:

2 : Best Practices of Financial Management and RCM, covering best practices for payer contract negotiations, point of service registration, case management, charge capture, claims submission, follow up of claims, processing of payer remittance, processing of correspondence, reporting and more : Understanding the Improvements in Patient Portal 2.0, introducing new ways to engage your patients in their own care by providing them with online access to their healthcare records : Introducing Your Next EDI Solution Secure Connect, showcasing the additional functionality that Pulse s newest EDI product provides, including an easier, more transparent management of claims and denials and newer authorization and referral electronic transaction capabilities : Keeping Pace with the Mandates PQRS and Meaningful Use, highlighting the latest updates in Meaningful Use requirements for EHR, where PQRS will be in the next few years and what you need to do to continue maximizing the financial impacts of these programs We ve spent a great deal of time working to make this year s PUG even better than the last, and I hope you ll join us next month! Jeff Burton President & Chief Executive Officer Pulse Systems, Inc.

3 Healthcare Trends 2016 Do Your Information Technology Needs Look Cloudy? Healthcare practices, both large and small, are being challenged with an ever changing landscape of reimbursement rules, decreasing revenue from payers and ongoing regulatory changes from everywhere. And just as you get change management in place for the new ICD-10 coding and the new Medicare payment rules and try to update your payer annual changes, you find out that your Information Technology (IT) costs have increased again! Do your IT needs look cloudy? Unless you ve been hiding behind One Write ledgers and avoided the whole IT thing over the last several years, a new IT landscape is emerging called Cloud Computing. Everywhere people are talking, shopping or discussing the newest trend in the healthcare field called Cloud Computing. So what is Cloud Computing? Simply put, Cloud Computing is the practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage and process data, rather than a local server or a personal computer. The cloud is just a metaphor for the Internet. Today s high speed internet connections for both business and home are making Cloud Computing a viable solution to host all of your business IT requirements in the Cloud. The days of buying local servers, backups and uninterrupted power supplies (UPS) are no longer required. Nor is it necessary to continually pay hardware

4 maintenance on the equipment, pay for management of the servers and having to replace equipment whenever they run out of memory, disk or processing power. Many times this happens every three or four years. So not only do we save on ongoing cost of maintenance and personnel, but we save on initial capital expenditures for server related equipment. And it enables you to access all of your business data needs (payroll, billing, accounts payable, HR, etc.) from anywhere you have an internet connection or via phone. So why else should I consider Cloud Computing? Consider this 2014 KPMG Cloud Survey Report that states: : According to executives in the survey, the top use of cloud is driving cost efficiencies (49 percent) : Better enabling a flexible mobile workforce (42 percent) : Improving alignment and interaction with customers, suppliers and business partners (37 percent) : Better leveraging data to provide insightful business decisions (35 percent) This survey is quite a bit different than it was two years ago. Cloud momentum is continually increasing to the point that in the future, very few companies will actually have servers themselves and will rely upon a Cloudy Future. But implementing a Cloud solution does have its challenges, as shown in the graphic below from this same 2014 KPMG Cloud Survey Report.

5 So how do I overcome these challenges and minimize my risk in a Cloud solution? Contact the Pulse Sales department to get more facts on the PulseCloud Hosting solution. We ll make your future IT needs Sunny!

6 Performing Offsets to Charges You can perform offsets to charges previously billed by completing the following steps: 1. Launch the Ledger module from the AR Management section of the navigation pane in the PulsePro application. 2. Click to select a record in the tree view pane. System Result: The details will display in list view. 3. Select the charge detail and right-click to select Edit- Charge Entry. System Result: Charge Entry will be displayed. 4. Complete the refile details and select OK to proceed.

7 5. Click the Edit icon from the top toolbar to begin making edits. 6. Click Save and a drop-down list will appear; select one of the following: : Select Save and Offset Unverified. : Selecting YES will offset all Charges, Payments, Adjustments and Refund transactions associated with the service. (The new charges will need to be manually verified.) : Select Save and Redistribute Verified. : Selecting YES will offset all Charges, Payments, Adjustments and Refund transactions associated with the service and allow redistribution to the replacement charge. The new charge, offsets and any redistributed transactions will be verified. : Select the redistribution mappings and click OK to proceed.

8 Locating and Creating a Document Using the Document Generator Module What is Document Generator? This is a set of clinic-specific documents tailored to pull patientspecific data to hand to a patient or send electronically to a follow up provider office. What could this feature of Pulse be used for? This is used to create a document that can pull patient information into an already created template for such things and a follow up visit or even the results of an exam. Having trouble locating a document to generate for a patient? 1. If you are logged into Clinical Dashboard, locate the Document Generator link on the left in the patient functions list and click to open the module.

9 2. Once opened, locate the icon below and click the small arrow to the right of the user name to reveal Change Provider or Clear Provider. Change Provider allows you to select a specific providers list of documents they have assigned to them for selection (as long as you have cover for rights to the provider you are trying to see documents for). Don t see the document you are needing? 1. Click the Clear Provider option and all documents created will be listed in the column to the left. 2. Locate the document from the list on the left and double click the document name. Open the document in the viewer pane on the right hand side to verify that everything is correct.

10 3. To generate the document that you have selected in the viewer, find and click the Generate Document icon on the top left of the tool bar. You will see a message that indicates if the document was successfully generated. 4. The document can now be reviewed and signed by the provider by selecting the left most icon on the top tool bar and making the appropriate selection(s) from the drop down list.

11 If you are accessing Document Generator from Pulse Pro, below are the steps to find and access the module: 1. Open the Register Patient module, type in the patient name and hit enter. 2. Select the Menu Other icon on the top right on the module. 3. Select the Document List icon from the box. 4. Locate the Document Generator icon and click to enter into the Document Generator module. From here follow the same steps as above for locating, selecting, generating and routing your document. If you are in need of more information, please call the Support Desk at and follow the prompts for software support. Our staff is happy to assist you!

12 Pulse Mobile The Pulse Mobile team is hard at work on the next big release of Pulse Mobile. This release will introduce support for Tasking in Mobile and will be available in the app store in April. Thank you all who participated in the Mobile Tasking focus groups in March to help us finalize the design for the Tasking solution! Patient Portal 2.0 We d like to extend a big thank you, to all who have participated in the Early Adopter program for Pulse Patient Portal 2.0! We received great feedback, which we are incorporating into our future plans for the product. This new solution enhances ease of use and improves function across multiple platforms, thus significantly reducing the time you will spend helping patients access and use the portal. Please contact your Pulse Client Manager if you are interested in the new Patient Portal 2.0 platform.

13 Pulse Note The Pulse team has made great progress on our new Pulse Note solution. The Early Adopter period helps us to fine tune the current solution and will support the client-driven design of future enhancements in the module. Please contact your Pulse Client Manager if you are interested in participating in the Early Adopter program for the new Pulse Note solution when it is available.

14 Get To Know Your Software Through these monthly newsletters, Pulse wants to help you get to know the people behind the voices in our Software Support department. You already know their voices from calling our helpdesk. Here s a little more about one of our team members Lora Aphay Software Support It was about six months ago that Lora Aphay (pronounced a pie ) joined the Pulse team. She was hired as a Software Support Agent and handled basic calls to assist the Software Support team. She quickly developed a pronounced understanding of the software, which led to her advancing to a more direct service role for our clients. Lora has grown very comfortable with the additional responsibility. It s a great opportunity, Lora said of her role at Pulse...

15 ... I really enjoy getting to know our clients and helping them resolve tough issues. Lora continues to grow her knowledge base in order to improve upon the quality service she already delivers. Lora has a three-year-old boy at home that she lovingly refers to as her little fatty. There is nothing she loves more than playing games with him. When she is not playing with her son, she references shopping as her favorite past time. When asked which past or present celebrity she would most like to meet and why, she said Marilyn Monroe because of her grace and beauty as a fashion icon. Lora s favorite fruit is a durian, which many consider to be one of the worst smelling foods in the world.

16 Wichita Ophthalmology: A client relationship based on shared goals and dedicated service As a longtime Pulse client of more than a decade, Wichita Ophthalmology has grown and flourished as it continues to take advantage of the tools and solutions Pulse offers to ensure the very best service for its patients. We use Pulse basically for all our everyday operations: from billing to daily scheduling, scheduling surgeries and Point of Care claims management and account management, says Lina Elkouri, Office Manager and Billing Administrator. Lina says the software is very user-friendly, straight-forward and intuitive, and even though they ve faced a few challenges along the way, the Pulse support team always works diligently to find a solution. The team always works with us as quickly as possible to resolve any issues and to improve the product and satisfy our needs, she says.

17 And speaking of resolving issues, Lina says it goes without saying that the help Pulse has provided the practice in meeting the challenges and ever-changing regulatory requirements surrounding Meaningful Use and other governmental mandates deserves its own round of applause. We have worked with wonderful, courteous people over the past 13 years and we look forward to many more, she says.

18 March Focus Group Earn $100 Pulse Bucks per Focus Group by attending online. PulseCloud Letters (March 10, 2016; 12:00 1:00 p.m. CDT) This focus group will discuss the need and plan for features in the pipeline for PulseCloud Practice Management Letters. Please join us and provide us your thoughts around how this feature can support your needs. Register Now! Pulse Tasking & To-do (March 17, 2016; 12:00 1:00 p.m. CDT) The Pulse product team will be sharing our plans to bring Tasking and To-do to the PulseCloud solution. In this session, you will learn the features and benefits of this solution and will have an opportunity to share your thoughts with the team. Register Now! After registering, you will receive a confirmation containing information about joining the webinar.