5.29 Release Features

Say hello to 2023 with CareStack 5.29! We have tailored for you an informative session on webinars, how to book and what to expect. You will soon receive instructions on the same. We will have a recorded version of the curated webinar sent across prior to the live session. This will be available for those who are unable to attend yet have early access prior to the live webinar with Q&A.

In the 5.29 release, your team will find some new elements, certain helpful workflow adjustments, and a few small changes that will render a big impact to your offices. With the new Goal Setting, CodeStack additions, and Front Office Dashboard rollouts, besides adjustments to some clinical items, and some insurance changes for ortho, this release has been designed to render more power to your team. 

Front Desk

Track critical details of Insurance Plan with CodeStack that will let you easily acquire details about the coverage, fee schedule including the carrier. Users also get to enjoy faster ways to scan multiple page documents into a single file besides benefiting from our informative alerts automated for enhanced, uninterrupted scheduling.

• Welcome to CodeStack! This new tool combines the power of the old Code Snapshot and Fee Slider. CodeStack is separated into 3 sections: Code Details, Fee Details, and Plan Details.
   

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  • After you have selected a specific code you have access to find all the details about the coverage by viewing the Insurance plan, Fee Schedule and the Carrier next to the patient estimates.
    • You can select the fee schedule to compare your fees listed for the code.
      • When you are in the fee schedule you can copy and paste the values back to the CodeStack.

• Default Scanning in Docs to .pdf 
  • When you are scanning documents, the default will be set to PDF.
  • To make scanning multiple page documents into one Document easier for you, the default has been set to ‘Save as a single file.’

• The Document name previously converted over to the lower case. CareStack has changed it to reflect Cap sensitivity (Upper stays upper instead of reverting to lower case).
• Patients can now copy the Responsible Party information to additional patients on the account inside the Kiosk, Office mode, and Patient Portal. Items copied over include the Address, Phone Number and Email. These items are editable.

• You will see Warning Updates when you are doing the following -
  • When a patient is scheduled at the same time in another operatory.
  • If there is a Provider Conflict i.e. Provider is scheduled at another location at this time. In this instance, you will be prompted with ‘Would you like to continue?’
  • When the Appointment Location is different from the Patient’s Default Location.
  • When the patient selected has been marked as inactive. You will be asked, ‘Would you like to reactivate the patient?’

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  • Tele appt- The patient’s email will be required for tele-appointment. Please add an email to the patient record.
• When deactivating a Provider, CareStack allows the choice of Replacement for both Location and Provider.

Clinical

To amplify the accessibility of Medical History forms among the Spanish speaking patients, CareStack has broadened its translation options. Offices are welcome to leverage the significant benefits of translated text into Spanish on the Medical History Form both in the Kiosk and the Patient Portal. 

With increased feasibility in sorting clinical images by date alongside the advantageous ability to work with exam views, offices gain not just better perspective but the potential to fine-tune diagnoses & treatments. Moreover, documenting clinical work gets far easier with CareNotes distinct ability to sort newest Appointments first. Yet another interesting perk is the auto-fill feature that automatically computes the Paid at Banding proportion directly from the Plan.

• CareStack has created a new Spanish Medical History option for both Adult and Child questionnaires, Conditions, and Allergies.
  • Once settings are enabled (*Tip: Add your translations and then turn on the Spanish medical history in yourAdult/ChildQuestionnaire -> Settings  the patient will have the option to toggle between English and Spanish when filling out their Medical history on the Kiosk or the Patient Portal. It is to be noted that users will still have the option to toggle between Spanish and English in CareStack to convert the choices the patient has selected.

*NOTE: To enable the 'Allow patients to complete the form in Spanish', users must select either Adult or Child respectively to have the selected audience view the translation option. Yet, if both Adult & Child are left unchecked, neither group will see the option to choose the language.

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    • Your office has to input the Spanish translation of conditions, allergies, dental and medical questionnaire questions and answers.
    • If the patient hand typed specific conditions, alerts, or completed questionnaires with text those items will not translate.
    • The language chosen matches the Buttons and alerts on the Medical History in Spanish.
      • Mark all as No, Save as Draft, Next, Back including the Warning message while missing mandatory questions.

• Any skipped Mandatory Questions on the Medical History will be highlighted to stand out for completion.
   

• Clicking on Due By date on Labs in the patient overview will take you to the Lab Case Slider to see all cases.
   

• SOTA Clinical Imaging has added the Exam View which also shows images by Date.

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  • To set the default for Exam View you can go to Practice Settings > Services > SOTA Imaging > Configure > Detail View > Exam View.

• CareNotes will now show the most recent order Appointment first to choose from.

• Ortho Updates
  • The % Paid at Banding will now auto populate $ value from Plan (e.g. 5% paid at banding for a treatment set at 100$, the initial insurance payment will be calculated as $5 and the contracted amount will be set as $95).
  • This can be overridden by the user.

Revenue Cycle Management

Ortho Insurance Payment Plans with prime Ortho coverage information tabs automatically utilized in Patient Eligibility offers users the ability for a quicker set up. Further opportunity to render a streamlined workflow for the billing order during the waiting period lets you choose UCR or Max Allowable as the default fee. Furthermore, users can enjoy the convenience of coordinating the Plan’s benefits and coverage better by importing and merging the desired Table of Allowances with existing ones. In addition, classification of codes based on treating dentist; the display attribute of grayed out voided claims for quicker identification; inclusion of patient titles in statements; payment plan notifications along with informative receipt details; visual cue labels and much more have been incorporated to aid users to derive actionable insights and scale up the efficiency of their billing and payment cycle.

• Ortho coverage information such as Percentage Paid at Banding, Payment Cycle and need for Periodic Claims available inside the patient’s Eligibility screen will be automatically used when creating an Ortho Insurance payment plan.
• Provider type-code restrictions if any, are considered when creating an ortho case or Ortho payment plan. 
• Audit Trial will reflect Insurance Deletion.
• Select between the UCR Fee or the Max. Allowable fee for fee calculation during a plan’s waiting period.

• Create claims for codes completed during a plan’s waiting period. Any claims created during this time will also have a label next to them for easier identification.
• Choose between the UCR fee or the Max. Allowable that needs to be used when after a patient’s benefits have been maxed out.
• Easily import a new Table of allowance or replace an existing one. Imported Table allowance can also be merged with an existing one.
• Voided claims will now be grayed out on the claims grid for faster identification.

• When creating claims, codes are grouped based on the treating dentist against those codes.
• Easily manage the ABP (Assign Benefits to Patient) flag from the patient’s Eligibility screen. 

• Minor changes to the grouping of the Print and Download button in the Fee Register and Table of Allowance page under Practice Settings > Fee Tables.
• The Pre-Auth Number column under the Pending Submission tab in the Pre-Authorization module has been removed.
• Track progress of your statement batch easily with the History button. 

• When printing a statement from the patient’s overview page, the ‘Include Account Statements’ option can be selected. This would avoid creating duplicate statements when running a batch statement creation.
• You can also add and edit statement notes for individual statements in a batch.

• Patient Titles are now included along with the patient’s name in Statements.
• Now generate statements for patients with patient balance regardless of if the patient had an insurance balance or not. 

Payment Plans

The Payment Plan Control Center and Patient Payment Plan have been updated to enhance the status of plans. The option to view your failed, overdue, and signature required within the Payment Plan Control Center makes it easier to identify to collect payments.CareStack has added the ability to link codes to already existing plans. The quick access to a Patient Payment plan by selecting the letter P for the code will show precise details of the plan.

Please find the below details regarding Payment Plan link/de-link codes, hiding codes for active plans, identifying the plan’s status by its label sets and more.

• Collect payment ahead of time for an upcoming scheduled autopay payment.
• Easily link and de-link codes to a payment plan.

• Users will see alerts to notify if a Payment plan is missing linked code(s) or if the contract amount is different from the sum of linked code(s)’ for patient amount.
• You can quickly spot if a code is linked to a General Payment Plan or not in the Patient Payment screen by looking for the ‘P’ label next to a code. Also, hide codes associated with a payment plan by clicking the ‘Hide Codes Associated withActivePayment Plan(s)’ checkbox.

• Easily identify the payment plan status linked to a code by clicking on the ‘P’ label next to it. A red icon indicates failed transactions and a green one indicates plans that are up-to-date.
• In the payment plan slide-out, you can easily identify if a linked receipt has been deleted by accessing the new ‘Receipt Deleted’ status under the Receipt Details column. When a linked receipt is deleted a warning pop-up will appear detailing all the implications of the deletion.

Here are ways to find out total failed/overdue amount/transactions besides tracking plans in the Payment Plan Control Center.

• In the Payment Plan Failed/Overdue Transaction(s) slideout (Payment Plans > Amount Overdue/Failed > Take Action), we have added 2 new summary tiles which show the total failed/overdue amount and the number of failed/overdue transactions 
• Track your active and completed/terminated plans in the corresponding tabs inside the Payment Plan control center and in the Payment Plan tab under patient payments. 
• Easily track payment plans with an overdue payment with the ‘O’ label, payment plans with a failed payment labeled as ‘F’ and payment plans needing a signature with the ‘S’ label. 

Refer key details listed below to know the section that lets you capture patients signature within the payment plan agreement, view information on new and old patient payment plans, etc.

• Find all the linked payment plan agreements and their status under the new View Details > Agreement Details tab inside the Payment Plan slideout. You can also capture the patient’s signature by clicking on the ‘View & Sign Agreement’ button to access which click on the Create Payment Plan tab.

• When making changes to the contracted amount, you will have a new pop-up that shows the difference between the old and new plan details.
• Inside the payment plan slide out, minor changes to the text will be shown when hovering over/clicking buttons.

Patient Engagement

Offices get to experience the benefits of the Pending task prompt-counter incorporated within the Kiosk to facilitate faster check-ins for patients.

• Pending task counter in Kiosk: Would you like to finish the tasks or log out?
  • At the time the patient is checking in for their appointment, if there are tasks that are not completed then the patient will see a popup that will prompt them to finish their Pending Mandatory Tasks first or logout.
  • The patient will not have access to the Check-In button until all Mandatory tasks are completed.
  • Pending Mandatory Tasks for Patient Kiosk options can be found inside the Practice Settings.

Reporting and Analytics 

Front Office Dashboard

The utility features of the Front Office Dashboard segmented as Daily, Performance, Planner, and Huddle offers offices the ability to deduce analytically their office’s performance and production goals. The up-to-date, real-time statuses are derivable location-wise for all users. CareStack has also brought forth a vital and unique Production Goals section to aid practices proactively set and meet both their daily and monthly goals.

In addition to your regular home page, also known as the ‘huddle screen’, we have included more tabs: Daily, Performance, Planner, Huddle, and Production Goals. These following tabs are per location, which can be changed via the drop down menu on the upper left of the page.

• The Daily Tab has the traditional ‘huddle screen’ content, as well as production and collection tracking, and completed visits. The individual lists hyperlinks that used to exist on the left side of the page, such as scheduling lists, care notes tracker, and pending signatures have been moved into the left navigation bar under the ‘Lists’ tile.

• The Performance Tab gives a larger date range to view gross production and patient collection values, graphs, and trends. The 4 tiles on the bottom of the page give patient base analytics, and the right section of the page gives commonly used patient lists for patient outreach, for example when a patient doesn’t schedule their next hygiene visit. All the lists in this page are actionable by clicking on the boxes ‘View Patients’.

• The Planner Tab: Gives you a monthly view to see the gross production completed on previous days, and what you have scheduled for upcoming days. It also shows schedule performance by Provider, Operatory, or Production Type on the right side of the page. 
  • If goals are set, any future day’s numbers showing in red, means the goal has not been reached with what codes were scheduled for that day. 
  • If the number is in black, it means that day’s goal has been met/exceeded, or else there is no provider or location goal set for that day. 

• The Huddle Tab shows valuable performance indicators, in a ‘yesterday, today, tomorrow’ format. If goals are set for production, there are red and green values that show if you were below your goal, or met/exceeded your goal. 
  • The checkbox on the upper right of the page “Show consecutive days” when unchecked, skip over the days that your office is closed, as per designated in location settings, so that tomorrow or yesterday doesn’t fall on a day your office isn’t typically open.

• The Production Goals Tab is where your office can set a gross production goal on a location level, and/or a provider level. This can be viewed on a yearly view, which also includes a quarterly view as well as a monthly view. 

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  • To Set Goals, click on the ‘Set Goals’ in the yellow box on the upper right of the page. You can set your location goals, and/or your provider goals here, which do not have to match, but there will be a warning at the bottom of the provider goals page if the sum of the provider goals doesn’t match the location goal. 
    • When setting location goals, it is per month on one page. When setting provider goals, all active providers are listed for each month, totaling 4 pages/tabs to fully set goals for an entire year. 
    • When setting location and provider goals, you can see the previous period goal and actual, which can help determine the amount you are setting for your current or future goal per month. 
    • When setting provider goals, you can choose to set them manually, do a percentage split among providers from the location goal, or do an equal split among providers from the location goal.

*note the line item on the bottom of the page that states ‘Remaining (From Location Goal)

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    • Once a goal has been set, the value will reflect and calculate on the daily, performance, planner, and huddle tabs with the stoplight mentality (red = below goal, green = goal met or exceeded).
    • Also note the i-icons throughout all of the tabs that detail informational content for clarification can be viewed upon hover. All pages show the most recent refresh date and time at the bottom.
    • Any rounded up numbers can be hovered over to show the full dollar amount in dollars and cents.

Operational Reports, Analytics Dashboard & Scorecards

To empower offices with actionable insights and contribute to accelerating their performance/goal setting process, resourceful KPI’s have been rendered to broaden the functional effects of the analytics dashboard and scorecards besides applying logic-wise, calculation adjustments to existing KPIs.

• Updates to Reports: 
  • Changes to the Clock in/Clock Out Report includes:
    • Total hours column is currently shown in decimal format. A new column will be added to show the hours in time format
  • The Production Summary report logic was updated to match the Gross Production (DOS) and Gross Production (trans date) KPI’s in both scorecards and analytics dashboard
    • Before: Total dollar value from completed procedures based on DOS/Trans. date excluding Fee updates
    • Now: Total dollar value from completed procedures based on DOS/Trans. date including Fee updates
  • The Credit Balance Report account outstanding and account unapplied credit columns have been removed, instead, showing the individual outstanding and individual unapplied credit totals to match the unapplied patient collection KPI in the analytics dashboard
  • Minor Changes:
    • The Adjustment report logic was verified to match the Production Adjustment (trans date) and the Collection Adjustment (trans date) KPI’s in both the scorecards and analytics dashboard
    • Minor improvements to the logic for the migrated production values in the Daily Journal report, Income Allocation report, and Income Allocation Extended report to ensure consistency with the Migrated Production (trans date) KPI in scorecards and analytics dashboard

• Updates in KPIs:
  • Average production per appointment KPI inside Analytics Dashboard and Scorecards has been renamed to Average Gross production per appointment for increased clarity.
    • Average Gross Production Per Appointment = Gross production (appt date) / total completed appointments
  • Changes to the Migrated Production KPI includes:
    • Logic change to the Migrated Production (trans date) KPI
      • Before: The KPI was not considering deleted codes
      • Now: The KPI considers deleted codes and is truly transactional 
    • The filters for CDT category and CDT code on the KPI for Migrated Production (DOS) and Migrated Production (trans date) in the analytics dashboard have been removed as it was not applicable, since all migrated production comes from MSB (migrated balance) codes only.
  • The KPI’s named Adjusted Production (trans date), Adjusted Insurance Production (trans date) and Adjusted Patient Production (trans date) have been removed from scorecards and analytics dashboards due to non-consumption.
  • The KPI name UCR Total has been renamed to UCR Production (DOS)
  • Logic change to the Checked Out Production KPI
    • Before: Total dollar amount of production from appts with an active appointment status
    • Now: Total dollar amount of production from appts with appointment status ‘Checked Out’
  • Logic change to the Net insurance production (DOS) KPI
    • Before: Net insurance production (DOS) = Gross Insurance Production (DOS) + Insurance Production Adjustments (trans. date)
    • Now: Net insurance production (DOS) = Gross Insurance Production (DOS) + Insurance Production Adjustments (DOS)
  • Logic change to the Net patient production (DOS) KPI
    • Before:Net patient production (DOS) = Gross Patient Production (DOS) + Patient Production Adjustments (trans. date)
    • Now: Net patient production (DOS) = Gross Patient Production (DOS) + Patient Production Adjustments (DOS)
  • Logic change to the Unapplied Patient Collection KPI: Calculated as the sum of all unapplied credits from patient collection. The total reflects the current state and is not time specific.
    • Before: The unapplied patient collection was configured to include both the Unapplied Patient Collection and Unapplied Collection Agency collection
    • Now: The Unapplied Patient Collection will reflect only the Unapplied Patient Collection

New KPIs introduced 

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  • Analytics dashboard and Scorecards
    • Production adjustments (DOS): The sum of the patient and insurance production adjustments applicable to procedures with a date of services within the selected date range
    • Insurance production adjustments (DOS): The sum of insurance production adjustments applicable to procedures with a date of service within the selected date range
    • Patient production adjustments (DOS): The sum of patient production adjustments applicable to procedures with a date of service within the selected date range
    • Average Net production per appointment: Average of the net production linked to a completed appointment for a given date range
      • Average Net production per appointment = Net Production (appt date) / Total Completed Appointments

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  • Analytics Dashboard (already available in Scorecards)
    • Applied Insurance Payments (Trans. Date): Total Insurance Applied +/- Collection adjustments based on transaction date
    • Applied Patient Payments (Trans. Date): Total Patient Applied +/- Collection adjustments based on transaction date
    • Cancellations (Percentage): Total percentage of appointments within a specified date range that are currently in the ‘Canceled’ status
    • Gross Insurance Collection (Payment Date): Total money from Insurance receipts based on the payment date on the receipt
    • Gross Patient Collection (Payment Date): Total money from Patient receipts based on the payment date on the receipt
    • Migrated Production (DOS): Calculated as the total payable from Migrated Starting Balance (MSB) codes with DOS in the given date range
    • Migrated Production (Trans. Date): Calculated as the total payable from Migrated Starting Balance (MSB) codes with transaction date in the given date range
    • No Show Rates (Percentage): Percentage of ‘No Show’ appointments compared to total appointments in selected date range
    • Procedures Not Linked to an Appointment: Count of completed procedures not linked to an appointment
    • UCR Production (DOS): Calculate as the sum of UCR of all completed procedures with DOS in the given date range
    • Unapplied Collection Agency Collections: Calculated the sum of all unapplied credits from the collection agency receipts. The total reflects the current state and is not time specific