| Chapter Sections: | Product Overview | How It Works | Client/Server Connections |
TreFre Medical (TFM) is a tool designed to automate every aspect of the medical office. The tool provides storage and retrieval of all information necessary to support the following:
TreFre Medical supports all these listed capabilities by maintaining tables in a database. These tables are updated through the various graphical windows that comprise the TFM application.
The following is a quick overview of the steps involved in using TFM as a practice management application. The remaining chapters go into greater detail explaining each interaction.
Since many medical practices are tailored to specific types of patients, TreFre Medical(TFM) also provides for preference settings that can be assigned and saved in the various tables in the database. Preferences allow default values to be specified and tailored to each medical practice. An example of a simple preference is to automatically assign all new patients to be female. These preferences are utilized for many interactions within the TreFre Medical product.
Every person that is seen and treated in the medical office is considered a patient. During an initial visit, demographic information about each patient is entered into the computer. On subsequent visits, this information is retrieved and updated as necessary.
Every patient that is treated is required to provide a method of payment. Typically, payment requests are submitted through a medical plan but alternate sources of payment such as cash and credit are often utilized. Payments are handled by assigning every patient a guarantor. The guarantor is responsible for providing the insurance coverage. Whether they have insurance or are paying through an alternate method, every patient must be assigned a guarantor.
When a patient needs to set an appointment with a provider, a set of appointment screens is available to determine available days and times.
When a patient has a billable interaction with a provider, the details of that event are recorded in an encounter. An encounter contains the date of the encounter, the name of the patient, the name of the provider and the codes identifying the procedures performed during the appointment.
Once the encounter details have been entered, a claim needs to be created to request payment from a payer (e.g. an insurance company) for the encounter. The encounter also contains information for each filed claim.
When a claim arrives at the payers office, the payer processes the claim, generates an Explanation Of Payment (EOP) and processes a payment. The EOP and the payment are then sent to the submitting office.
The EOP is an itemized list of procedures and payments for the procedures for one or more encounters. Each payment is itemized into multiple categories.
All relevant EOP information is entered into TFM and automatically applied against the appropriate encounters and claims. When all procedures for all claims has been paid by the payers, the patients co-pay is deducted from the patient account and the encounter is labeled as balanced.
A patient account is maintained for each patient and updated with all financial transactions between the office and the patient. If the account balance is negative, the patient owes money to the provider.
For the staff to understand the various characteristics of the practice, many reports are available in TFM. These reports provide financial management as well as other feedback that is required to run a successful practice. These reports are generated on demand and are suitable for immediate printing.
All of the TFM data is stored on one computer designated as the TFM database server. Multiple staff members can access TFM information simultaneously. This is done by having each personal computer with a TFM license connect to the TFM database server over a local area network(LAN). The TFM applications can be a network of personal computers all connected the TFM database server, sharing the same information.