Have you ever been lost in Kareo and needed some help right there on the spot? Well, we have great news for you. You can now access context-sensitive help in nearly every task within Kareo. Simply click on the question mark (?) icon in the upper right corner on the blue title bar on an open task. This will launch the Kareo Online Help and open the help topic that is specific to the currently open task. Now that you can find answers on your own, don't forget to call our customer support team every once in a while just to say hi!
 
For more information on this feature, refer to the help topic Getting Help and Training > Using Online Help in the Online Help and User Manual.

So you have been on Kareo for awhile now and you don't know what to do about those dead-beat patients. Now you can setup your own custom-defined patient collection categories to track patients through the various stages of your collections process, from current, to delinquent, to patient balances you've sent to collections. You can define certain rules that apply to patients in each collection category, such as a dunning message that will display on their next patient statement, or whether or not to send any further statements to the patient. Every patient is initially assigned into a default patient collection category named "Current". However, you can change the collection category for a patient at any time on the Account tab of the Patient record. To get started in setting up new collection categories or customizing the default collection categories, select the menu item Settings > Other Lists > Find Collection Categories.
 
For more information on this feature, refer to the help topic Setting Up the Company > Setting Up Other Lists > Setting Up Collection Categories in the Online Help and User Manual.

Let's face it; sometimes those patients need a friendly (or not so friendly) little reminder to pay their medical bills on time. Those reminders are known as dunning messages. You can now add custom dunning messages for each collection category in Kareo. Your custom dunning messages will appear in the dunning box on all on-demand and electronic patient statements you prepare using Kareo. Since you can now add a different dunning message for each collection category, this lets you escalate your collections messaging as patients move from early stages (friendly) to later stages (unfriendly) in your collections process. To setup dunning messages on a collection category, select the menu item Settings > Other Lists > Find Collection Categories. You do not need to do anything else. The dunning messages will be added to your patient statements automatically.
 
For more information on this feature, refer to the help topic Setting Up the Company > Setting Up Other Lists > Setting Up Collection Categories in the Online Help and User Manual.

You may need to communicate an important message to a specific patient on their next patient statement. You can now do this by adding patient-specific notes that will appear on a patient's next statement. To add a patient-specific note, open a Patient record, go to the Account tab, click the Add Note... button, type a note, and check the Add note to next patient statement box, and that's it! These patient-specific notes will appear in the dunning box, in addition to standard dunning messages, when you generate on-demand or electronic patient statements using Kareo. Please note, any patient-specific notes you add will continue to appear on any future patient statement for a given patient until you add a new note or a blank note to override and/or remove the previous note.
 
For more information on this feature, refer to the help topic Managing Patient Records > Viewing Patient Account in the Online Help and User Manual.

Every month you generate a new batch of patient statements, and every month you need to enter the minimum allowable balance and days between statement options manually. You're probably thinking this doesn't make too much sense. Well, we think so too! That's why we added the Minimum Allowable Balance and Days Between Statements settings to the patient statement options. To configure these options, select the menu item Settings > Options > Patient Statement Options. Once you setup your default patient statement options, the minimum allowable balance and days between statements options will be pre-configured every time you generate a new batch of patient statements by selecting the menu item Encounters > Prepare Patient Statements. But of course, you can still override these default values for individual batches.
 
For more information on this feature, refer to the help topic Preparing Patient Statements in the Online Help and User Manual.

How do you know your providers are getting paid what they are owed from every health plan? That's what the new Contract Management Summary report is all about. Located in the Reports > Payments menu item, the new Contract Management Summary report shows an analysis of average and expected allowed and payment amounts by primary insurance. You can select totals by post date or service date. You can filter by rendering provider, service location, department, patient, insurance company, insurance plan, payer scenario, batch #, procedure category, or procedure(s). You can show all metrics, or just expected allowed, average allowed, expected payment, and average payment. You can group and sub-group by rendering provider, service location, department, insurance company, insurance plan, payer scenario, batch #, procedure category, procedure code, and metric. Once generated, the report also provides hyperlinks to the Contract Management Detail report.
 
For more information on this feature, refer to the help topic Generating Reports > Understanding the Reports in the Online Help and User Manual.

How can you find specific underpayments by a health plan? That's what the new Contract Management Detail report is all about. Located in the Reports > Payments menu item, the new Contract Management Detail report shows a list of allowed and payment amounts by primary insurance. You can select transactions by post date or service date. You can filter by rendering provider, service location, department, patient, insurance company, insurance plan, payer scenario, batch #, procedure category, or procedure(s). You can show all metrics, or just expected allowed, actual allowed, expected payment, and actual payment. You can group by rendering provider, service location, department, insurance company, insurance plan, payer scenario, batch #, procedure category, and procedure code. Once generated, the post date column hyperlinks to the Claim record.
 
For more information on this feature, refer to the help topic Generating Reports > Understanding the Reports in the Online Help and User Manual.

Would you like to see your accounts receivable by patient collection category? That's what the new Patient Collections Summary report is all about. Located in the Reports > Accounts Receivable menu item, the new Patient Collections Summary report shows an accounts receivable aging by collection category. You can start aging from first billed date, post date, or service date. You can filter by rendering provider, service location, department, payer scenario, and batch #. You can sort by collection category or total balance. You can show all columns or just the totals only. Once generated, the report provides hyperlinks to the Patient Collections Detail report, which provides a detailed list of patient by collection category.
 
For more information on this feature, refer to the help topic Generating Reports > Understanding the Reports in the Online Help and User Manual.

Would you like to see a list of patients by patient collection category? That's what the new Patient Collections Detail report is all about. Located in the Reports > Accounts Receivable menu item, the new Patient Collections Detail report shows a detailed analysis of patients by collection category. You can start aging from first billed date, post date, or service date. You can filter by rendering provider, default rendering provider, service location, department, payer scenario, batch #, and collection category. You can sort by total balance, balance over 90 days, or patient last name. Once generated, the ID column hyperlinks to the Patient record and the Total Balance column hyperlinks to the Patient Balance Detail report.
 
For more information on this feature, refer to the help topic Generating Reports > Understanding the Reports in the Online Help and User Manual.

After the last release, we may have left you wondering why we would have created a user productivity report that you can't run by the date the user actually entered transactions in the system. We realized the err in our ways and added a new option so you can run User Productivity report by entered date, in addition to the existing options of post date, and service date.
 
For more information on this feature, refer to the help topic Generating Reports > Understanding the Reports in the Online Help and User Manual.