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Cornucopia Software Makers of Practice Magic Psychotherapy Billing Software |
What's New For information about the CMS-1500 form required as of 4/1/2014, click Here. For information about 1/1/2003 CPT codes, click Here. Questions about NPI# and filling out the new CMS-1500: Click Here Problems Unzipping: Click Here This page displays an up-to-date listing of changes to our customer support web and a list of the latest features added to Practice MAGIC. We'll also place notices here regarding product updates, scheduled releases, or problems and work-arounds that may affect all customers. When bugs reported by our customers get fixed, we'll place a notice here. Updates must be requested by the customer; they will not be shipped automatically. Contents
CMS-1500 Forms required as of 4/1/2014 The version of Practice Magic that handles the new CMS-1500 forms that are required as of April 1, 2014 is available. It enables several changes. Diagnosis codes are lined up properly and are indicated by letters instead of numbers. Box 30 is left blank. Although the new form requires qualifiers in several places, there is not change in Practice MAGIC for these. You can simply type them in where needed. Box 14, for instance, was a date. Now it is a date and a qualifier that you can type into the client file after that date, so that the qualifier prints correctly on the form. The new version has two new insurance templates, cms1500m.frm and cmsaltm.frm. These should be automatically transferred to your c:\MAGIC\INFO folder when you install the new version of MAGIC. MAGIC will not know to look for these new templates unless you go to line 39 in USERDATA (accessed through the MAGIC Calendar EDIT menu) and place an "M" at the end of the file name on that line. The cost of the upgrade to this new version is $38.50. This is independent of yearly update costs, and it is required of people who have the unlimited version of Practice MAGIC as well. It covers the cost of additional programming necessary to make these features available. ICD-10 The ICD-10 diagnosis codes are not yet required, but they can be entered into MAGIC by simply typing them in, without searching the included codes. When an ICD-10 list becomes available to us, we will make it available for inclusion in the software.
New CPT Codes beginning 1/1/2003. For an upgrade of the program that handles the new CPT codes introduced and required 1/1/2013, you will need a new version of MAGIC that has been reprogrammed to handle these codes. Unless you purchased the program after 8/1/12, the charge for this upgrade for single-user programs will be $39.50 to cover the cost of reprograming. This fee also applies to upgrades for unlimited programs. It is not in lieu of annual update fees. The new version will NOT print the old codes after 1/1/13, even if the date of service was in 2012. If you must print a statement that includes the old codes either do it before you install the new program, or set your computer's date back to 2012 (i.e. 12/31/12) and print the statements you require. The new codes include some quirks: They do not differentiate between inpatient and outpatient psychotherapy, so 90818 will now be coded as 90834, 45 minutes of Psychotherapy. As of 1/15/2013 they do not include a code for a 90 minute session, although it appears that 90854 will be added for that purpose. Practice MAGIC does not have a designated code line for 90837 (60 mins) or 90854 (90 mins) so, if you want to use these, you will need to add to them as userdefined codes in USERDATA. (There are six slots for userdefined codes). If you have a code that is printing as ".5" units, try download the upgraded Practice MAGIC again, as this problem was recently corrected. If it persists, the problem is with the "minuts/units" designated in the box where you fill in the fee amount for each procedure for clients. In the client file, accessed through the EDIT menu on the calendar screen, remove the "Minutes/units" designation entirely (so that it is blank) in the box where you set the fee for the code that prints with .5 and it will print with a "1" Assuming that code is the one that most commonly causes the problem, 90832, if you put a "1" in the "Minutes/units" box in the screen that allows you to set the fee, the code will print as "90837" and the units will be "1"
Other Features Added to Practice MAGIC over the years (All are in the Windows version; some are in the MAC version)
Practice Magic is Y2K compliant. HCFA now requires the dates in box 24 on the HCFA-1500 to be printed as a single eight digit number of the form mmddyyyy with no separations between month day and year. Practice MAGIC now prints in this format in box 24 (unless you place a ^ before the name of the insurance form on line #101 of the client information. - i.e. ^HCFA-1500 ). You can still, at your option, type a two or four digit year in the various boxes that ask for dates. If you give a four digit year, MAGIC will print the date in the new eight digit format. If you give a four digit year, MAGIC will print it in the traditional format. If you utilize the four digit year anywhere on the form, MAGIC will use the new format in the signature box (#31) when it prints the current date. The opening screen of Practice MAGIC now offers you two options, one to run the program normally, and the other to run a self-prompting demonstration that illustrates many of the features of Practice MAGIC. In the calendar window the data entry box can be pulled down to reveal a complete list of clients and insurance companies. We have had requests to be able to make that box wider so that it will be possible to distinguish between insurance companies with the same name but different addresses. This can be done by holding the SHIFT key down and pressing the right arrow key. Once you have opened the client list in this wider format, it will open in the wider format each time you open it during that session of MAGIC. Previously, the default for Place and Type of Service (Boxes 24b and 24c on HCFA-1500) has been O and 9 respectively. It is now 11 and 3 respectively. Also, now, if you change the Place and Type of Service (Boxes 24b and 24c) on the on-screen HCFA-1500 (reached by selecting Client Info on HCFA from the EDIT menu on the MAGIC calendar screen.), MAGIC will ask you if you want this new value to be the default for new clients. The default for box 24g, units of service, is "1." To change the units of service, edit the client information, and place a colon after the fee for the particular service in question followed by the number of units you would like to print.
Press the <F11> key when a client appointment is selected from the MAGIC calendar and MAGIC will display a screen containing all that clients appointments from the end of the last billing period, as well as payments and balances as of the date of the selected appointment. Pressing <F12> instead will display the summary of charges, payments and balances at the bottom of the screen without leaving the calendar screen. There is also now a DAY SHEET option in the PRINT menu which will print a single day's appointments with telephone numbers and a summary of charges, payments and balances as of the day of the selected appointment.
A new "HCFA-1500" menu has recently been added to the menu choices on the MAGIC calendar screen. This menu redundantly provides in one place all the functions that would be required by someone only interested in using Practice MAGIC for filling out and printing HCFA-1500 forms for clients. The entries are in the order one would use them: add a client, edit the client information on an on-screen HCFA-1500, and print it. These are exactly the same functions as "Add Client" in the DISPLAY menu, "Client Info on HCFA" in the EDIT menu, and "Print insur. form" in the PRINT menu respectively. There is a fourth menu entry under HCFA-1500, "Print all insur forms," which is the same as the entry under PRINT with the same name. MAGIC now fills out the HCFA-1500 form in the NEW TIMES ROMAN font and prints the bottom lines on the HCFA-1500 in a reduced size font so that there is room for name, addresses, phone # and pin # (6 lines of info) without writing over the red lettering on the form. Some users will still find it necessary, however, to set the page size on their printer setup information to Legal (8.5" x 14") so that the bottom line of print on the form can be printed. You can now enter visit dates directly onto the on-screen HCFA-1500 rather than first entering them on the appointment calendar. Also a button has been added to the on-screen HCFA-1500 EDIT screen to allow you to proceed directly to PRINT. On some computers the click-and-drag method of moving or rescheduling an appointment was not working properly. We accommodated those machines by placing an asterisk at the end of line #46 in the USER DATA file, the line that asks at what point you begin to charge interest on an overdue account. The asterisk disables this feature. If you would like to reenable click-and-drag, simply edit line #46 in USER DATA (from the EDIT menu), eliminating the asterisk. When running a receivables report ("Receivables report for all" in PRINT menu), you will now be asked if you want MAGIC to also report all dates of service for which no insurance check has been received (for clients for whom a primary insurance carrier has been designated.) Formerly new clients were automatically added when an appointment was made for a client MAGIC didn't recognize. Now, you can also add a client or insurance company using the Add-new-client option in the MAGIC "EDIT" menu or the newly added "HCFA-1500" menu. Formerly Unselect All always appeared in the SPECIAL menu. Now it is replaced by Select All when no clients have been selected. This makes possible a variety of procedures like printing an address list of all clients. Click on Select All, and then select the "envelops/labels" option from the PRINT menu. If you have indicated on line 21 of Userdata that you print addresses on labels rather than envelops the adderesses will print on paper as if on label sheets ("3x11" and "3x10" indicate 33 or 30 labels to the sheet respectively.) Using software supplied by the electonic claims clearing house, Practice MAGIC can now be used to generate an electronic version of your HCFA-1500 claim on disk, which can then be transmitted electronically to any of a variety of elctronic claims clearing houses in order to bill claims electronically. The electonic claims clearing houses charge a fee for this services. We have found that eclaims seems to be the easiest to use, however, freeclaims is free and MAGIC will work with most of the others. Changes to Practice MAGIC
Thursday, July 10, 1999 - modifications to Windows Practice MAGIC
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