Rather maintain your own billing operations? You can still have access to the benefits of Zotec technology – by licensing our Electronic Billing Center software.

Our technology provides practices with an integrated set of software tools to reduce the costs of billing and maximize the potential for revenue. Our Decision Support data mining module provides access to your practice’s critical business data, putting into your hands the information you need to most effectively manage and direct your business.

We make the Electronic Billing Center available to our licensed clients either in a client-server environment or via an Application Service Provider arrangement.

Included Features and Options

Electronic Billing Center Suite:
Meet the Electronic Billing Center (EBC), the backbone of our software. This is where charges are created, payments posted, images scanned, appeal letters generated and all follow-up activity is, well, followed-up. Here, specialists have seamless interaction with all tax identification numbers and can easily address patient needs as they call into the office. It’s also the central application where the majority of employees will access their daily workload as directed by the Campaigns (the individualized processing cycles used to progress charges through the system). To do all this, the EBC comes loaded with updated CPT, ICD9, area code, zip code, CCI edits, RVUs and Referring Provider/UPIN/NPI (as available) databases.

EBC Data Capture: Electronic charge and demographic information, straight from the hospitals. Using business logic, we create customized hospital interfaces and pre-populate required billing information into the appropriate fields. Then, once the information is reviewed for appropriate coding and proper demographic information, the claim is uploaded into the EBC for immediate filing. However, hospital data isn’t always perfect, which is why linking/cross-referencing options let you establish rules to expedite correction. Even better, your specialists can access both the charge information and the physician’s dictated report – all on one screen.

EBC Manager:
Where to go for real-time, graphical, easy-to-use reports. Robust reports can be generated by physician, physician group, location, CPT, ICD9, Carrier Specific and any other combination you need. Couple this with our standard month-end reporting package and our growing inventory of customized reports, and you’ll have just about all the information you could ever want. And you can do almost anything with all that data – naturally, our software is compatible with Microsoft Excel and Access.

EBC Operator:
Process claims, statements and letters each day by clicking a button, or take advantage of automated job scheduling functionality. You decide whether to print statements, claims and letters internally or outsource the file to your preferred print mail vendor.

EBC Administrator:
This module allows the management team to set up Clients, with each represented by its tax identification number. Here’s where you can really control your costs of collecting money, while ensuring that no claim is lost in the shuffle. The driving force behind the EBC is the “Campaigns;” in EBC Administrator, management is able to clearly define how individual claims are handled on a line item basis. Work gets prioritized based on your settings and directed to specialists. Simply load in your contracts with the expected allowable and, from that point on, each payment will be checked against this established database. So you can be certain you’re collecting every dollar from the Carriers.

EBC Integrated Imaging:
The ability to image and link all documentation to individual patient accounts exists throughout the entire EBC. As we demonstrated, this functionality dramatically reduces the labor and effort associated with filing claims, but most importantly following up on denied, inappropriately paid or secondary claims. Integrated imaging provides your office electronic access to complete patients account histories.

EBC Patient Portal:
Clients are able to create customized secure (SSL) web pages allowing a more efficient communication stream between patients, physicians and back office personnel. The EZ Med Info Portal improves access, eliminates labor and proactively communicates with patients and referring providers. Patients can review their accounts, update their demographic/profile information and even make payments online. What’s more, payments are automatically posted into the EBC and changes to profile information are readily available for review by a billing specialist. If you elect to license the RIS, patients and referring physicians are able to receive their medical reports online, along with a hyperlink to the PACS images.

EBC Decision Support:
This robust reporting module enables clients to drill down into their system information. EBC Decision Support provides industry-specific business intelligence to your database, thereby allowing you to effectively data mine, drill down, chart and analyze your data in a robust and meaningful way. EBC Decision Support includes analysis cubes, representing best practices for viewing and digesting information. In addition, this application has a Wizard capability, allowing individual users to create their own cubes, analyses and reports.

Claims Filing:
In states where you do business, Zotec Partners provides and maintains direct ANSI 837 and 835 interfaces with Medicare, Medicaid, Blue Cross and Blue Shield. On the commercial side, we will create and maintain ANSI-compliant interfaces with your preferred commercial clearinghouse. We have also begun to file and remit directly with Cigna, Aetna and United Healthcare, and we will interface with your preferred print mail vendor and third party collection agency. And of course, we’re always finding new ways to eliminate paper primary and secondary filing and remittances.

EBC Radiology Information System:
EBC’s RIS provides resource based Scheduler, efficient outpatient work-flow, fully integrated document imaging, seamless integration with your existing PACS vendor, and complete transcription package or integration with your existing vendor. A fully integrated RIS/Billing package, coupled with a proven HL7 interface with PACS, allows the most efficient process flow for your practice.

Zotec’s RIS is resource-based and template driven, allowing it to effectively manage your practice scheduling and workflow needs. User-friendly features available with just a few clicks of the mouse include the ability to overbook, block and reschedule appointments. Client-defined colors allow appointment types to be easily displayed and quickly recognized, and multiple sites may access and make alterations to the schedule.

Other benefits include the ability to create unlimited resource templates, collect patient co-pays, update demographics, and scan patient information. And because the software is integrated with the Electronic Billing Center, users receive notification from your billing department regarding the status of a patient’s account before scheduling exams.

Z-Integrator HL7 Interface Tool:
HL7 interfacing is an ever more vital component in the business of healthcare information management. The Z-Integrator function gives licensed clients the freedom to create HL7 interfaces between the EBC Radiology Information System and outside systems. Rather than requesting individual interfaces to be created by Zotec, Z-Integrator places control of interfaces in the hands of the client. As an example, interfaces may be created to manage events that interact with the RIS, such as orders from external Electronic Medical Records systems. Z-Integrator allows external orders to be processed in EBC RIS while tracking the original accession and patient numbers, and to send results back to the originating system. It also greatly increases HL7 messaging flexibility with PACS and Dictation Systems.

Our billing technology offers our outsourcing clients:

Open Book:
When your practice chooses Zotec as a full-service provider of medical billing and practice management, you get full online access to your accounts and reporting. And we do mean full – Zotec has an “open book” philosophy that lets you see what we’re doing on your behalf, with total visibility of your practice’s essential business information.

Specific Billing Protocol/Campaigns:
“Campaigns” are the custom billing protocols established to progress different types of charges through the billing process. The flexibility of the campaigns and the automated effectiveness they bring to the billing process differentiate Zotec Partners technology from most other billing service companies in the market today. Our billing service is focused on the 15% of all claims that are likely not being appealed, and incorporate specific follow-up protocols that assures all variant payments and denials are aggressively pursued and successfully appealed.

Contract Variance:
Information concerning each of your payment plans, including anticipated payments, per line item, and per modifier, is loaded into the system. At the time the initial payment is posted, our software flags and calculates contract variances and puts them in a work file for automated appeal.

Integrated Imaging:
We scan all documentation necessary for successful claim adjudication. Denied or inappropriately paid claims are appealed and automatically sent out after initial posting. In addition, secondary claims go out the door the next day.

Patient Portal:
The increasing popularity of Healthcare Savings Accounts and other high-deductible plans is being felt in the medical billing business. As more consumers become responsible for a larger portion of their bills, it is essential to provide your patients with easy access to make payments. Zotec Partners creates a customized secure (SSL) web page accessible via your practice’s web site, allowing a more efficient communication stream between patients and the billing function. The Patient Portal improves access, eliminates labor and proactively communicates with patients. The Portal allows patients to review their account, update their demographic/profile information and make payments online. Payments are automatically posted into Zotec’s Electronic Billing Center and changes to profile information are readily available for review by our billing specialists.

EBC Decision Support:
This robust reporting module enables clients to drill down into their system information. EBC Decision Support provides radiology-specific business intelligence to your database, thereby allowing you to effectively data mine, drill down, chart and analyze your data in a robust and meaningful way. EBC Decision Support includes analysis cubes, representing best practices for viewing and digesting information. In addition, this application has a Wizard capability, allowing individual users to create their own cubes, analyses and reports. EBC Decision Support provides your practice with access to information that enables you to proactively manage your business, rather than reacting to outdated reporting materials.

Outbound Dialer
As more consumers become responsible for a larger portion of their medical expenses, it is essential to provide your patients with easy access to make payments. Our automated phone technology can make multiple automated and customized phone calls to patients, allowing them to obtain balance information, update insurance information, and make payments without needing to speak to a live attendant. All phone calls are recorded and are attached to the patient account. If there is ever a dispute concerning a billing-related phone call, we can email the recorded call to you. A patient receiving an automated call can be connected to one of our account specialists to take their HSA payment, or to set up a payment plan. All automated phone calls have customized messaging depending on the severity of the outstanding account and client specific direction.

Automated Appeals
Zotec Partners has more success in collecting from insurance companies than our competitors do because of our technology. We have the ability to automatically appeal denials with no human intervention, and this generates prompt responses from payers. Once they see we can also “play the paper game” on behalf of our clients, we notice a change in how they deal with the claims we submit. Zotec Partners implements direct filing of insurance claims with carriers. Clearinghouses used by (or owned by) some of the traditional outsourcing companies have had well documented challenges recently, resulting in interrupted cash flow that is inevitably passed along to the clients. When Zotec files your claims directly to the carriers, not only do you not encounter such clearinghouse problems, but you are not being charged on a per piece basis for the privilege. The electronic submit and remit interfaces we establish with the payers allows claims to be paid quickly and accurately while being deposited directly into your bank account.