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| Product Descriptions | TFM | TFM Scheduler |
We would like to introduce you to a revolutionary new software tool designed to manage your medical practice, TreFre Medical Suite. TFM, created by a corporation that is teamed with medical professionals and computer experts, attempts to streamline the day to day management of a medical practice. We have first hand experience with the extreme pressures that are placed on the medical community and realize that it is a priority to reduce costs. We have heard the many voices from independent medical offices that say they are not getting the required political support or financial direction to stay or even become profitable. There is confusion as to when and if an office should "get connected". Questions like "What software should I purchase?". " Which computers work best?" and "How can my office become better managed?" are heard at most conventions.
Profitability
A goal of the medical practice, other than providing a public service, is obviously to turn a profit. Few, if any, hospital-supported practices are profitable. At TreFre, we believe that most physicians will be in private practice within the next several years. We also know from experience that physicians currently in private practice already understand profitability issues. Simply stated, it takes hundreds of thousands of dollars to start a medical practice and several years before a physician can get a return on that investment and make it profitable.
Business Decisions
Many decisions have to be made to keep a business profitable. A medical office is the physician's business and it is in their best interest to make these decisions themselves. Unfortunately, the time that a physician must invest to make these decisions is time not available for patient care. When the physician is not seeing patients, the practice can not make money. One solution many physicians use is to hire an office manager, an accountant, or a lawyer to make many of the business decisions. These professionals, however, are expensive and do not always have the same investment in the medical office as the physician does. If a bad business decision is made, the physician is the big loser. Professional costs impact the bottom line, reducing the physician's profits. Professional services are required but need to be minimized. The wrong decision could cost a medical office thousands of dollars. Physicians must view and run the practice as a business to be profitable.
To help a physician manage the medical office, there must be data available that supports the business decisions. A medical office has hundreds of thousands of dollars coming in and going out. There are multiple sources for income and many business expenses. TreFre Medical suite helps keep all of this data organized, allowing the physician to efficiently manage the practice. When professional services are required, the fees can be minimized because required data is quickly and easily recalled.
Daily Questions
The physician must be able to answer some simple questions like:
Having staff keep all of the required data is complicated and difficult for them to manage.
This is why a small investment in TreFre Medical Suite will help you gather data that gives you the power to make the correct decisions and to increase profit margins.
Why do you need tools like TreFre Medical (TFM) Suite?
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There are many issues that make practice management difficult. Multiple and widely varying insurance procedures and requirements, coding issues, multiple co-payments, insurance adjustment and withholds, capitation, delays in payments by insurance companies and patients, are just a few. All of these issues make practice management a difficult and time-consuming job that MUST be done. |
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With the political pressures that exist to reduce medical costs to individuals, the physician is required to understand how these decisions are affecting profits. The increase in adjustments and withholds, HMO requirements, government requirements, legal requirements, payment delays, capitation, and patient non-payments all hurt profitability. |
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With increased complexity and diminishing returns, it is important to hire good employees. With a good economy that has full employment, finding the best people is difficult. Keeping good employees becomes a priority. They must be paid well and have good benefits. Having the right number of people is important. Having too few people will cost money because they can't get the work done. Having too many people drives up costs. |
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Everyone is working hard. The staff does the best job they can but they only have 40 hours/week to do their work. The physician must work the office hours, must keep up medical records, and must make hospital rounds. This schedule leaves little time for practice management. Tools to help you gather the facts you need to make decisions are very important. The tools must be easy to use, reliable, and provide quick accurate facts. |
How will the TreFre Medical Suite help manage a practice?
There are several ways that TreFre Medical Suite helps a physician manage a practice. First, TreFre believes that the most effective way to maintain medical practice data is in a computer database. The reason for a database is so the data can be reused over and over, presented in many different ways, and used for many purposes. Secondly, computer based tools establish a consistent procedure for managing data. Finally, human mistakes are minimized because the more often data must be transcribed the greater the chance for error. Once data has been correctly entered into a computer database, it can be reused without error.
TreFre Medical suite has been specifically tailored to provide:
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keeping names, address, city, state, guarantor, insurance name and numbers, important phone numbers and contacts allows quick access to individual information and allows easy analysis. |
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Similar data to the patient demographics must be kept for the guarantors of insurance. Not all patients are guarantors and not all guarantors are patients. TFM makes the management of this data by entering it only once but can be reference for each patient that has the same guarantor. An advantage of having TFM is if the guarantor information changes, it only has to be changed in one place, the database. | |
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Typically there are many procedure codes used within a wide range of charges. All of the procedure codes and the supporting diagnostic codes need to be tracked. Getting the correct procedure codes accounted for is crucial and is the source of many billing errors. Insurances must be billed correctly, deductibles must be tracked, and co-payments and balances must be collected. Having an easy to use tool like TFM helps to track this information. |
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Many insurance companies require the filing of a HCFA 1500 form. Filling out each form is a time consuming job. TFM provides an electronic version of this form that utilizes a patient, provider, and a coverage database. This tool significantly enhances the creation of the forms and improves their accuracy, resulting in more timely pay outs. |
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After insurances have paid for procedures, patients are responsible for the balances. TFM helps generate patient bills. |
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Tracking a patient's visits is important for multiple purposes. DOS is required for insurance billing, for tracking return visits, and for generating reminders for future visits. |
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An insurance company pays for procedures, makes adjustments, and withholds fees. If a patient has a second or third insurance company, they must be billed and their payments tracked. Many payments are unpaid because of minor mistakes. Knowing if and when an insurance company has paid for the procedure helps you manage your practice. TFM keeps all of this data and helps you manage this information and analyze performance. |
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After a patient visit, a co-pay is collected. After insurance payments are made, patients are billed for any balance. All patient payments must be tracked. TFM provides a convenient mechanism for tracking these payments. |
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There are many forms of payments that can take months if not years to collect. It is important for the efficient operation of the medical office to understand where these balances are. Quite simply put, "Who owes you money?" If there are insurance non-payments, follow-up is required with the insurance company. If a patient owes money, you need to know that and take the appropriate action. TFM provides easy analysis of the current balances for improved management of the business. |
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It is important to understand the business and to keep it balanced. It is risky business for a practice to become dependent on only one insurance company. If a practice has too large of a percentage of business with any one insurance company, small changes by that insurance company can cause big swings in income for the medical office. TFM allows you to analyze this situation to avoid imbalances. |
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TFM allows automatic creation of address labels. This greatly enhances the effectiveness of direct mailings. Labels can be created for various criteria (ZIP, insurance, etc). |
The Scheduler is an add-on product to our original product TFM. The Scheduler is a graphical interface to calendars for scheduling patients and for defining physician availability. The scheduler is now available for purchase.
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