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NPI Number Issue
by Rich Winter, EDI Support Services
NPI Changes, May 23rd
Sending NPI only in your electronic claim files begins on May 23, 2008. What does this mean to Ortivus EDI? It means that EDI must make all Ortivus ECM instruction sets compliant by no longer sending the legacy provider number in the claim file after May 22nd. You, as the provider, will not have to complete any setup changes to your Sweet-Billing program. What we do ask is that you DO NOT remove the provider number entered in the Company Code Payor Overrides. This number is instrumental in the creation of the claims. Remember, just because this number is still present in Sweet-Billing, it will not be sent in the claim file after the May 22nd.
To make sure your instruction sets are up to date with these changes, please check to ensure that your Industry Service Pack (ISP) is dated 05/02/2008 or later. You will find this date in the ISP field on the bottom right corner of the Help >> About >> System Info. screen. If this date is prior to the May 2nd date, go to the Ortivus Support website and download the latest ISP. If you need assistance to download this ISP, please call 563-387-9338 and an Ortivus Support Tech will be happy to assist you.
AVL - What Is It and How Does It Associate With Sweet-CAD and Public Safety?
 by Sharon Frauenkron, Support Services
AVL is an acronym for Automatic Vehicle Location. Many people mistakenly use the terms GPS (acronym for Global Position Satellite system) and AVL interchangeably. This is not correct; however with current technology, GPS usually plays a role in an AVL system.
Simply put, AVL is defined as a system that has the ability to identify the location of a vehicle and provide a display of that location. Where AVL Automatic Vehicle Location is present, the Vehicle Properties position tab contains up-to-date, real-time information about the vehicle’s position. This information is updated according to the cadence set in the Communications tab. Otherwise, information in this tab is determined from manual moves by the Call Center staff. This tab provides the following information:
- The Date and time of the vehicle's last position.
- The vehicle Direction, indicating where the vehicle is heading, with 0º as due North.
- The vehicle Altitude, indicating the altitude at which the vehicle is positioned. This is mostly used by aircraft.
- The vehicle speed. When a vehicle is moved manually, the speed will record 0.
- Complete street address where the vehicle is positioned, if the coordinates can be geodecoded. Otherwise, the field remains blank.
- The position of the vehicle in latitude/longitude or local coordinates.
- The precision gives an indication of how the position was calculated in GPS Global Positioning System terms: 2D fix, 3D fix, 2D Differential or 3D Differential. When the vehicle is positioned manually, this field displays Manual Move.
- To change the vehicle position manually from this tab, click Change Position… to open the Site Search dialog (see Geodecoding for more details about the Site Search dialog).
- When you modify a vehicle’s position manually, the speed is set to zero (0) in the Position tab and the vehicle direction will be adjusted in relation to the previous position.
Communications Tab
This tab contains all the information regarding vehicle position transmission cadence. The cadence controls the frequency with which the GPS unit communicates with the Sweet-Server at the Call Center base. The cadence is set up for each individual vehicle, and as such can be customized to suit the functions of each vehicle.
Vehicle Properties—Communications tab
This tab is configured using the following fields:
- Text fields are provided to enter the standard time between transmissions, the distance traveled between transmissions, and the maximum number of seconds elapsed between transmissions.
- For example, you may specify that a vehicle reports its position every 240 seconds (4 minutes), unless it has traveled .25 miles (or kilometers). If the vehicle travels very fast, and therefore is covering much ground, you can require that the vehicle reports no more often than every 10 seconds. This will keep the vehicle from transmitting its position too often and overloading the network.
- A text field is also provided to enter the delay in seconds when the first transmission will be sent, relative to the top of the hour. This feature allows you to set up a position reporting sequence to minimize radio interference, where each vehicle is assigned a different time slot for position reporting.
- Another option is offered if you have vehicles other than land-based units (aircraft, watercraft, etc). You can select one of the radio buttons that allows you to either
- Enter the number of positions to accumulate before transmitting them to the base or
- Select the maximum time reached option. This last option will enable the sending of a group of positions once a pre-set time has been reached.
Your system must be specifically configured to use these options.
- The record position checkbox allows you to control whether position reports are consigned to a history file or not. These positions include those resulting from manual moves. Once present in the history file, these positions are available for playback.
Daily Work Process - What is a common daily work process and where can I find out what my service should be doing on a daily basis?
by Beth Hollar
Did you know that Sweet-Billing has a Daily Work Process which we suggest our customers follow?
When a new employee starts or if you are just curious as to what your service could do to improve general daily processes, you can follow a five-page document that is located within the Sweet-Billing Help System or on our OrtivusNA website within the Knowledge Library; it is also linked here for your convenience. This document thoroughly explains what to do and how to do it.
Here is a layout of what a typical service should be doing on a daily basis:
Call/Patient Data Entry
Electronic Billing
Paper Billing
Print Invoices/Forms
Print Statements
Payment/Batch Credits
Daily Reports
Charge Report
Credit Report
Call Report
Aging Report
Backup
Automatic Daily Backup
User-Established Backup
For more information regarding Daily Work Processes, please contact Support at 563.387.9338.
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