Wiki Office Ally: Training issues and what it can do

[1010medical@gmail.com]

Hello, I have a new client that does not have a billing software and still uses paper charts. She has access to the previous billing company's information on her accounts for view only. I am trying to keep her overhead low for software so we signed up with Office Ally. I was in software development for years and have used several softwares over the past 25 years but OA is not what I expected. It may be a training issue or lack there of. They offer one hour team sessions with other practices and they demo one aspect of the software and you can ask a question via chat. They are not able to give a detailed answer because they only have 1 hour to show billing or patient management or claim management. For those that utilize the software:

1. How do you make notes on claims for follow up?: ie you appealed a claim and spoke to someone and they are having it reprocessed...where do you note that in the patient's account?
2. You create a visit and then a claim from that visit and it goes to clearinghouse, it is rejected, do I have to create a new visit and create a claim from that visit and if so, what happens to the original visit and claim that was created and rejected? Will it show on our AR report as outstanding ? Will it show up in the patient's account as an unpaid balance?
3. We are already enrolled in EFT for all plans but we need to sign up for ERAs to go through OA.. I click the link for instructions and it takes me to a PDF that is 7pages long. Pages 1 and 2 are instructions. Pages 3 and 4 are a list of payers and pages 5-7 are the enrollment form and they are numbered 1-3.
4. Their instructions say to fill out pages 5 and 7 only if you are doing ERA only and if you want to enroll for all payers type "ALL" in the payer name field. However, the form has 3 pages only and they are numbered 1, 2 and 3. So I am assuming it means pages 5 and 7 of the PDF and page 5 has type of form has three options "EFT & ERA", EFT only and ERA only. There is a radio button in front of each but the button for EFT & ERA is permanently filled in and I can't uncheck it. If they do EFT as well, they charge 2.99% of each ERA. How do I only have the radio button for ERA only to be filled in? We don't want to pay them 2.99% for something we already get for free.
5. Item 2 on page 5 of file is asking for an ECHO draft number and draft amount and Payer/Insurance Co. ...we don't use ECHO for our EFTs so we don't have anything to put in the blank.

I have sent them a message regarding this and 3 days letter I get an email saying to read the instructions on the form and a link to the form I have questions about.

Anytime I try to call and state what I am looking for...ie where to add notes to the system or check outstanding claims...I am told to sign up for training and I have already taken it but they don't have the answers.

Anyone successfully using OA for a medical practice such as general surgery or OB/GYN? Everyone on the trainings seem to be in mental health field.

 

[info@revantagehbs.com]

You are not alone in feeling this way about Office Ally. It is a solid low-cost platform, but the learning curve and limited support can definitely be frustrating, especially when you are coming from more advanced systems.


We have been working with Office Ally for several years now across multiple specialties, not just mental health, and have it running smoothly for practices including primary care, surgical specialties, and multi-provider setups. Happy to help.