5.31 Release Features

CareStack 5.31 invites you to an impressive tour of prime feature requests brought into effect for practices across locations, including resourceful updates, beneficial reforms in UI design and interestingly much more. The implemented modifications are sure to help practices optimize their dental PMS workflow and better accomplish tasks with fewer clicks; correspondingly equating to time-saving workflows and reducing errors; ensuring users are not missing the basics wherever exceedingly essential as in the smart choice of enabling/disabling creation of Transfer Credits.

The select range of features encapsulated in this release offers significant benefits, such as easy discoverability of self-explanatory operational reports for users, ability to gain actionable insights from the robust Rejected Claims (Count) KPI, potentiality for practices to amp up productive hours while dealing with bulk electronic eligibility requests using our renewed Pending Eligibility Lists. Equally favorable is the capability to efficiently and smoothly Reschedule Appointments and effectively sort out Short Call patient requests parallel to other advantageous features we have enthusiastically brought forth.

Early Access/Beta

Operational Report (revamp)

a. UI Redesign

i. Reports are arranged as cards for quicker selection. To access these reports navigate to System Menu > Operational Reports.
Note: Each card holds a description of the report along with its use case to equip users with the primary
knowledge of the specific report and what it is chiefly used for. 

ii. Use the Search field located on the top left to find a report by its name.

iii. Provides logical grouping of reports. For example, If you select Billing and Operations, it will show you reports matching both criteria. The logically grouped reports are set as clickable labels on the top 
for easy access.

 

iv. Ability to Sort Reports by different criteria: Last Generated, Most Used, Least Used, Favorite & Alphabetical. By default, the option will remain as Last Generated.

b. Offers the ability to save multiple Filters by name and seamlessly generate saved reports without having to build a filter criteria each time.

i. When creating filters (single or multiple), users have the ability to select from any of the following dynamic date ranges: WTD, MTD, YTD, Last 14 days, Last 7 Days, & Custom. 
Note: These would allow you to generate reports with the selected date range dynamically. For example, if the last 7 days option is selected for saving a filter, then you can generate the report at the end of every week without having to change the date range filter each time.

ii. You can either Generate a report (if applicable) or Download the report as PDF, CSV OR Excel.

iii. You also have the added ability to make changes to the Filter criteria and either update and 
generate or create a new filter altogether.

 

c. Offers ability to mark saved filters as Favorites and then sort by Favorites so that all your report(s) 
that have been marked as Favorite will appear at the top of your list.

 

Front Desk

1. Reschedule Queue

a. CareStack offers users the enhanced ability to filter appointment types and action them quickly to aid practices to increase their production. The Reschedule Queue comes with a brand new UI and workflow for swiftly tracking patients, booking a new appointment or actioning an existing one. It further allows you to have actionable features like Book, Delete, Edit, Go to Chart, Add an Appointment Note, and Create Updated Memos. Besides, It will provide you with the details of the last appointment, upcoming appointments, and treatment codes attached to the appointment. To access these features navigate to Dashboard > Lists > Reschedule Queue. Let’s narrow it down for you:

i. View upcoming Future Appointments. 

ii. Extended view for the patient's Phone number.

iii. You can view and edit a Memo.

iv. Edit Appointment Notes.

v. Choose Clear Queue to erase all entries.

vi. Ability to Print after applying the desired filters.

vii. Multiselect the desired patients and apply Delete. 

viii. Export the reschedule list to CSV or PDF format.

ix. Actions under More Options to Find Slot, Go to Chart, & Delete per patient.
Note: Similar features are offered in the Short Call Lists.

2. Short Call Lists

a. Ability to add patients to the short call queue who have not booked any appointments. To add patients with no appointments, select Add Patient to Short Call List and select the suitable dropdown options for Patient Name, Location, Provider, Production Type, Operatory. Moreover, users can Book an Appointment for the desired patients directly from the short call queue.

b. Quickly access the Reschedule/Short Call lists to book a slot from the Appointment window > 
Find A Patient. 

c. When you book an appointment, a notification pop-up will appear letting users view all appointments in the Reschedule or Short Call Queue, if any. This further enables users to avoid any duplicate booking of appointments as well as action the relevant appointments appropriately.

d. Users can also select the Set Short Call option from the patient’s Appointment booking window and input the Preferred Slot to capture the patient’s desired date and time. 
Note: Let’s say the user puts in a Preferred Slot description such as May 1st between 3 & 4, then that is what will reflect under Preferred Date and Time on the Short Call queue.

e. Users can avail the ability to mark for Short Call from the Patient Menu as well.

2. Concurrent Appointment Setting

a. CareStack has increased the amount of concurrent appointments to schedule at one time from 7 to 20. To access this feature and make the desired changes, navigate to Practice Settings > Users > select Provider > Provider Details > choose the desired count for the Max No of Concurrent Appointments.

3. Documents 

a. Right click the Appointment block on the Scheduler and click on View Documents to directly open 
up the Documents page of the patient. This lets users swiftly take action be it to view, upload, add or complete patient documents, saving considerable time and clicks.

4. Scheduler Enhancements

a. Ortho Patient Label

i. Easily identify Ortho patients by means of the O alphabet icon in red assigned against each ortho patient that shows up on the Scheduler. This lets users easily differentiate between general and ortho patients. Moreover, within the patient appointment details section for Ortho patients you will see an additional Ortho label highlighted in orange to render a better visual.
 

b. Card on File Label

i) For patients who have their card(s) saved on file, practices can make use of the Scheduler Settings to include the Card on File (COF) tile on the Appointment block. This enables users to easily identify the patient’s mode of payment from the outset of a patient appointment. 
Note: To access and customize this ability, navigate to your Practice Settings > Scheduler > Scheduler Settings > Edit > Card on File > click Save to have it reflect accordingly on the Scheduler.

c. Check Out Status View
The color of the Appointment status will automatically turn to gray once the user selects the Check Out status and the letter C will also reflect the color gray which previously was lettered in green.
 

d. Routing Slip

Access the Med Hx Last Completed On information on the patients Routing Slip. This lets users view the most recent date on which the medical history form was last updated providing users insight into how recent the updates on Allergies and Conditions are.

5. View email 

a. Hover over the Appointment block on the Scheduler to view the patients’ Email ID just below the patient details section. 
 

6. Recall

a. When clicking on the Recall due date it takes you to the specific due date on the scheduler allowing users the added ability to view all providers. The below navigation points will take you directly to the scheduler.

i. Recall screen > select Recall date brings you to date on scheduler where available providers/operatories are shown to schedule the patient.

ii. Patient overview > select Recall date brings you to date on scheduler where available providers/operatories are shown to schedule the patient.

iii. Patient Chart > select Recall date brings you to date on scheduler where available providers/operatories are shown to schedule the patient.

7. Feedback Settings– (Request Support)

a. Users can contact support to enable the ability to access the Feedback Settings at an account level. This allows users to alter the feedback timeframe from within Practice Settings which includes:

Feedback forms are triggered after log out once a user completes 60 days in the system. After which it will be triggered based on the preferences set below.

     i. Feedback form is triggered post logout after a certain time frame? Do you want to keep it enabled? 
        Y/N

    ii. How Frequently do you want the feedback to trigger? 
       1. Set the preferred number of days within which you would  want it triggered.

Note: Contact Support to raise a request to avail the Feedback Settings feature. Get in touch with support, anytime you wish to have it switched off.

 

Clinical

1. Add/Edit a Pharmacy 

CareStack extends its users the convenience to assign a patient's preferred Pharmacy to their profile. Previously the only way to obtain information about the pharmacy was by searching the Clinical Notes. The ability to add a pharmacy will further allow practices the ease of maintaining a list of location-specific pharmacies they are associated with.

a. Practice Settings

Practices can add new pharmacies to maintain a list of the same. To access this feature, navigate to the Practice Settings > Prescriptions > Pharmacy > Add Pharmacy. Input the Name, Location, Address, and other relevant details and select Add New Pharmacy. You can also Edit Pharmacy details in the Practice Settings. 

Note: Inputting the correct location(s) will aid users filter out the relevant pharmacies near the set location.

i. Only users with permission can View Pharmacies & Add/Edit Pharmacies. To access permissions, navigate to Practice Settings > Administration > Profiles > Manage Permission > Practice Settings > Pharmacy. To enable it for other users, use the toggle button to switch between Yes/No.

b. Patient Overview

CareStack has updated Pharmacy to be seen in the overview as the default Pharmacy chosen by the Provider when adding the new patient or editing the patient in the overview. To have the Default Pharmacy assigned to Patient Overview, select Add New Patient > choose/change the preferred Default Pharmacy from the dropdown. Users can also directly add a pharmacy right from the Add New Patient window by selecting the Add Pharmacy button.

c. Prescription

When creating a Prescription, you can utilize the pharmacy dropdown to change the pharmacy. This provides a visual insight into the kind of Pharmacy patients are prone to use or have used in the past. Also, it lets you run a quick check with your patient when prescribing the medications. Here again, to add a preferred Pharmacy, select the Add Pharmacy button. 

2. Care Notes 

a. Resourceful fields added to the Care Note Properties section boxed in yellow.
i. DOB (date of birth) and age are present.
ii. Clinical case is present to choose from a dropdown if it applies.
Note: Users can use this option to tag a CareNote to a Clinical Case that deals with Oral Surgery Workflows. Stay tuned to the upcoming release to know more about how you can benefit from using Clinical Cases if you're a Specialty Practice.
iii. Referral provider will automatically be present if it was assigned to the patient 
iv. Assistant can be chosen. (Previously this field was labeled as Assignee)
 

b. Medical history

i. You can view the medical history of the patient upon creation of your care note by selecting Show Medical History. To access this feature, navigate to Patient Overview > Clinical > Chart > +Note > Show Medical History. This is applicable to Care Notes both in Draft and Finalized status. Moreover, there is a drop down that has been included to enable users to choose the medical history they would like to view on the very right of the Care Note section. This allows users to refer to the Medical History while filling up the Care Note as and when required.

ii. Once you have finalized your Care Note, you can print the Care Note with the medical history. Ensure to deselect Attach to Print box if you wish to not attach Medical History  to Print.

iii. Ability to make the desired choice i.e. Print with Med Hx. or Print without Med Hx. by right clicking on the note within the Clinical > Chart > Notes section by selecting the Print option.

Note: Here is how the Print layout of a clinical Care Note with and without Medical History will appear to be.

.

 

Patient Engagement/Patient Services

1. Patient Profile
a. The Nickname field renamed as Preferred Name offers the ability to add Preferred Name
manually from the respective touchpoints on the patient Profile. The saved Preferred name 
will be displayed within brackets on the Profile.

i. Add New Patient > More Name Options.
ii. Edit Info > Preferred Name.
iii. Patient Profile > Account Summary > Add/Edit Members > Add New > More Name Options.
iv. Patient Profile > Account Summary > Add/Edit Members > Add New > Add a new responsible party > More Name Options.

  Note: The Preferred Name field will retain the previously added Nicknames within the system. 

 b. Ability to select Portuguese as the Preferred Language within Patient Profile Edit Info > Preferences > Preferred Language.

2. Global Search

a. The saved Preferred name will be displayed within brackets while searching for the patient. 

3. Routing Slip 

a. When you Print a Routing Slip, the Preferred Name will be displayed under Patient details.

4. Patient Engagement Campaigns

a. Ability to use Quick Links on Patient Engagement > Campaigns > Create Campaign to input 
the Preferred Name across Text, Email and Voice Templates. 

b. The UI for the pop-up alerting user to upload HTML in Patient Engagement > Email Template > Upload HTML comes with a totally redesigned outlook. 

 

5. Patient Portal and Mobile Medical History Form

a. The Verification Code email that a patient receives when logging into the Patient Portal will have the OTP represented in an enhanced font size for greater visibility. Additionally, the email will also include location name and email id.

b. Inclusion of Search functionality to select Insurance Carrier and State while populating the 
Account Details section in the Patient Portal. 

 

Revenue Cycle Management 

1. Transfer Credits

Does your office keep unintentionally creating transfer credits due to poor insurance payment posting habits? CareStack has come out with two incredible features to help! 
1) A practice setting that BLOCKS the ability to create a Transfer Credit. 2) Enhanced warnings at the time of creating a credit transfer (if your setting is not chosen to block creation of a transfer credit) to ensure the transfer credit you are making is REALLY intentional. (Hint - 99% of transfer credits made are NOT intentional/proper)

a. Use the ‘Allow Creation of Transfer Credits for insurance overpayment’ feature on Practice Settings > Payments > Insurance Payments > Others > Edit to efficiently manage transfer credits while posting payments for an Insurance overpayment. By default it is set as ‘Yes’ to allow users to post the insurance payment with the Transfer Credit. To turn off the Transfer Credit creation feature, select No and click Save.

Note: A concise explanation to what a transfer credit is, is provided in many areas of the software. Hover over the i icon to know more about Transfer Credits. In short, A TRANSFER CREDIT IS AN INSURANCE OVERPAYMENT AMOUNT. If an insurance truly overpays over the allowed amount or UCR amount, then a transfer credit is appropriate. But, If the insurance has overpaid over what their estimated portion was, but the total of the fee doesn't increase higher than the UCR, then a transfer credit is not appropriate.

i. Setting the Transfer Credit creation feature as No will trigger the Submit button on the insurance payment posting page to remain disabled until users execute the corrective steps to remove the potential transfer credit. Once the transfer credit is removed, the Submit button will be auto enabled.

 

ii. Dual notification for Transfer Credit: Here is a scenario that follows when your settings ALLOW the creation of a transfer credit and a user is posting an insurance payment that will result in creating a transfer credit. Users will be notified by a line item stating: ‘There is an overpayment of $x against this code. Select Action.’ At this point, choose the appropriate option from the Select Action dropdown which includes Credit to Patient, Increase Insurance Allowable & Apply, and Transfer Balance from Patient. If the user selects the Credit to Patient option, a second warning notification will follow alerting the user to validate if the transfer credit is intentional.

b. Partial Reversal of Payments: Insurance adjustments using Adjust Off / Transfer balance to Patient to address a Partial Reversal of an existing insurance payment while closing a claim will be notified by a red alert icon. 

Note: Hovering over this icon will display the info: ‘This adjustment will cause a Partial Insurance Payment Reversal of $x.’  This feature was brought in to render more transparency and clarity to scenarios of unknowingly reversing prior insurance payments while posting the current insurance payment on a code.

c. PBAL Adjustment: When an insurance pays less than expected, also called an INSURANCE UNDERPAYMENT, if the user posting the claim does not preventively do the proper insurance adjustments on screen, the system will not only do the adjustment for you with a PBAL adjustment, but will also show you which codes it applies to, and how much per code, before you click Submit. The system will notify the user stating: ‘Transfer to Patient, PBAL Adjustment, $x’. Then, on selecting Submit, the system will generate an additional alert to notify users on the PBAL action.

d. All the above scenarios are similarly handled within both Migrated Payment and ERA Posting.

2. Electronic Eligibility (EE)

The Pending Eligibility queue has received a facelift that includes newer functionalities, the major being the ability to perform Electronic Eligibility in Bulk, thereby aiding users to save a whole lot of time and clicks.

Access the Pending Eligibility List from Dashboard > Lists > Patients with Pending Eligibility.

a. Selecting the Eligibility filter from the Scheduler > Eligibility View will enable users to view the list of patients whose eligibility was not completed within the custom time period as set within Practice Settings > Scheduler > Scheduler Settings > Eligibility under Customization of Scheduler Views  > Edit > Eligibility Check Period under Eligibility Settings. 
Note: Based on the set Eligibility Check Period, the patient appointment blocks will appear Red for Not Completed,  Green for Completed and White to denote patients with no insurance when viewing the scheduler in the Eligibility view.

b. Using the patient eligibility list: Four segregated tabs on the top, each denoted by a count to represent All Insurances with Pending Eligibility, Insurances Requiring Manual Eligibility, Insurance with Electronic Eligibility & Electronic Eligibility Response Pending Review.

 c. As for the Days Since Last Eligibility column, it has been updated to include Eligibility Pending to 
call out a list of insurances that have not undergone an Eligibility check. Whereas, Eligibility Check Period will pull up a list of insurances interpreted based on the custom timeframe set within Practice Settings > Scheduler > Scheduler Settings > Eligibility > Eligibility Settings . 

Here’s a quick working list for users:

To multi select patients pending Electronic Eligibility across multiple tabs, check mark the Select All option which in the illustrated screenshot below has been marked as tab 1 for reference. This will auto select the patients that have electronic eligibility marked (the green EE) and whose Electronic Eligibility has not been run within the last 30 days (with the exception of medicaid and medicare that can be run once per calendar month). If the checkboxes are disabled, it means the electronic eligibility has already been run within 30 days, or is not supported, and upon hovering over the disabled checkbox you can see a note that states as such. 

Select tab 2 to manually update the eligibility of the insurances that do not have electronic eligibility marked with the green EE, and tab 3 for the insurances that do have electronic eligibility available. In tab 3, you can perform the same actions as in tab 1. (Select all, then perform electronic eligibility). 

Note: Upon clicking ‘perform electronic eligibility’, It will ask you for 2 things: The Billing Dentist (which may be different per appointment Provider in a multi provider office), and the Service Type Code. If you need to do several smaller batches because the Billing Dentist will be different per appointment Provider, you can filter the list using the Appt. Provider drop down to narrow down the search results. The Service Type Code relates to what type of eligibility you want. The default is 35 - Dental Care. If you want Medical and Dental combined, that is 30 (this can be selected from the dropdown), or if you want Medical only, then choose 1. 

Tip: There are also several others in case you require only a small portion of the eligibility, rather than the full eligibility that comes with code 35, 30, and 1. Once you have fully worked through tab 3, you can head over to tab 4 to work on your Responses. The responses you will find can be 'E.Awaiting', which means the eligibility response is still awaiting a response from the clearing house; 'E.Failure', which means the clearinghouse could not get an answer; and E.Res', which means the electronic response is available for review. 

Note: We recommend on the 'E.Failure' responses, that you try again and double check your billing dentist and service type code. Keep in mind that an insurance can stay in 'E.Awaiting’ for a while, depending on how many eligibility requests you have submitted to the clearinghouse, so we recommend that you continue waiting for that response. For the 'E.Res', you can click on the 'update eligibility' on each individual insurance, which opens the plan slider where you can access the response(s) and update eligibility accordingly. Once you have updated an insurance's eligibility, by clicking “save and update eligibility”, they will fall off this list, as long as 'Days since last eligibility' has not been set to all time, preferably, on your Scheduler Settings within Practice Settings, so that it stays as a true live working list.

  3. Batch History

a. Select the View Batch History clickable label on the top right to track the batch history for the eligibility requests that have been sent. A slider in grid format will open up for users to view updates on the date and time stamp the Batch was Initiated On, name of the Billing Dentist, Count of Total Insurances and Failed Insurances as well as the Status of the Bulk Electronic Eligibility batch followed by the specific Username it was run by.

4. Patient Eligibility

a. eEligibility Response Mismatches

As a continuation of Bulk eEligibility, we have brought in the ability to view the latest EE response inside patient eligibility while selecting the patient insurance from inside the Pending Eligibility list.
Click on 'Show Detailed eEligibility Response(s)’ to see the information from the clearinghouse. Additionally, if there is any mismatch between the values in the Electronic Eligibility Response that was received and those already existing under Patient Plan Details and Benefits will be mapped and displayed on the very right hand side of the screen for the user to action it appropriately. To access this feature select the Check for mismatch tab on the top.
Note: Each mismatch will be represented on a card, one following the other. Click the Replace All button to replace all the old values with the new values in one go. To alter the values individually, click on the Replace button corresponding to the intended value. 

Both the actions i.e. Replace All / Replace will trigger the related field(s) to be inserted with the new value. These fields will be supported with an add-on feature to Undo the Replace action. When users select Undo, the new values in the field will be immediately replaced with its old value. The old value will be displayed right below the respective field to aid users adopt corrective action.

Note: The areas that can show up in a mismatch in the Benefits section are Subscriber ID, Patient Insurance ID, Patient Name, Patient DOB, Subscriber Name, Subscriber DOB, Family Max Remaining, Individual Max Remaining, Family Deductible Remaining, and Individual Deductible Remaining. Whereas the areas that can show up in a mismatch in the Carrier/Plan section are Carrier Name, Carrier ID, Phone, Website, and Plan Group Number. 

5. Completed Procedures

a. Code Status in completed procedures grid has a new addition - Balance Due Patient & Insurance, both in the Status column, and within the ‘select’ for the status column for filtering, for ease of more accurate identification.

 

6. Payments

a. Payment Date and Deposit Date are retained when updating/changing a location on an Insurance or Patient receipt.

b. The ‘CARE CREDIT’ payment category has been renamed ‘THIRD PARTY FINANCING’ to remove confusion when utilizing that payment category for other 3rd party financing, such as Lending Club or Sunbit. Now instead of reading ‘CARE CREDIT - Lending Club’, it will read as ‘THIRD PARTY FINANCING - Lending Club’. 
Note: This not only affects future transactions and reporting, but previous as well. 

c. If a Payment Date of a patient receipt is updated, and the payment came from a payment plan, the payment date in the payment plan will also be updated automatically to the same date, reducing confusion and mismatching dates.

d. When a Payment Plan is created from the Payment Plan tab in patient payments, there is a ‘Link Treatment Codes’ on the upper right hand side of the payment plan slider, which opens up a module of completed codes, to save steps in linking codes to payment plans.

7. Insurance Plan

a. Max Allowable
Owing to popular demand, CareStack has updated the following ability while creating a new insurance plan via Practice Settings > Plans > Add Plan > Fee When Benefits Max Out : “The default for 'Fee when benefits Max Out’ will remain as Max Allowable”.

8. Payment Plan (Ortho & General)

a. Exempt Status

CareStack has brought in an Exempt status to Ortho and General payment plans. Exempting a payment schedule on a payment plan means skipping that payment schedule and writing the amount off; meaning it was not intended to be collected. Use Case: This can be made use of, let’s say to account for an external payment made for a payment plan, such as a patient sending a check in the mail to pay for the next month's payment schedule, or to a charity write-off for a payment schedule within a payment plan.

9. Ortho Patient Plan 

a. Ability to link an Ortho Patient Plan with a General Payment Plan from Billing > Ortho Cases > Payment Plans > navigate to the desired Active Patient Plan > select View Details > choose Link General Payment Plan button on the bottom left > Choose the desired option i.e. a) Create New Payment Plan to complete which, follow the steps as usual or b) Link existing Payment Plan which opens up an additional field allowing you to select an existing Payment Plan created within the system that has not yet been linked to any treatments.

b. While creating a New Payment Plan by choosing the Link General Payment Plan option, an Ortho Payment Plan Summary would be shown on the top followed by the option to Create Payment Plan for the Entire Plan, Pending Codes or Customize. 

c. Under Additional Settings, the ‘Add Credit as’ option would have ‘Post against patient balance’ with the Order of Posting set as ‘Newest First Order’ to have the patient balance applied against the most recent treatment code.

Note: Both these options are set by default and can be changed to the remaining available option(s). For ‘Add Credit as’ the remaining two options include, Leave as Unapplied credits and Post against patient balance first, then post the remaining against account balance. Then, the alternative to the Newest First Order for the user would be ‘Oldest First Order.’

Note: Details of the newly linked Payment Plan such as date of linkage, plan details, payment applied, username, etc, will be displayed on the bottom right corner of the Patient Payment Plan page 

d. To Terminate, Complete or Pause any linked Ortho Patient Plans, a pop-up will appear prompting the user to action two distinct steps of which the first one will depend on whether you have chosen to Terminate, Complete or Pause the Patient Plan. Then, the second step would be to action the desired choice i.e. Terminate, Complete or Pause the linked Payment Plan. 

e. Editing a linked Ortho Patient Plan will notify the user of the old and new values in a grid for the changes made for select corresponding items under the Payment Plan summary as illustrated below. 
Note: An ‘i’ icon, highlighted in red, will be displayed below alerting users to simultaneously make the necessary changes to the linked general payment plans.

f. When users attempt to De-Link a General Payment Plan, a pop-up would appear guiding the user 
to either De-Link the plan or Terminate and De-Link the Plan.

Reporting and Analytics

1. Rejected Claims KPI
 

a. The operational efficiency of the Rejected Claims (Count) KPI in Insights > Operational Reports > Scorecards > Edit has been increased. Previously, this KPI presented the number of claims that ever had a history of rejection. Henceforward, this KPI will generate the count of Rejected Claims by Date of Service (DOS) and will include only the number of those rejected claims that are in current status. 

i. There is an i icon helper text to enable users to understand what this KPI does.

 

ii. The count displayed by the Rejected Claims (Count) KPI has been set to match the number of
claims in Billing > Claims > Rejected Status.

2. Operational Reports 
a. Provider Short Name will be shown after the Provider column in all views of the Income 
Allocation extended report.