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Holidays!!! The Staff at OfficeMate wishes you, your staff and family a Happy and Healthy Holiday Season! In This Issue • Message From the CEO, Looking at 2003 and 2004 • OfficeMate Version 4.5 Available • New EMR ExamWRITER Coming Early in 2004 • Special ReportWRITER Offer…Save Over $1,000. • New OSSU Department of Training and Education • Enhanced Customer Service Levels in 2004 • Featured Services for Backup, Recall and Electronic Claims • Future OfficeMate Hardware Requirements |
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2003 has been an outstanding year at OfficeMate and we are looking ahead to 2004 with many new, exciting changes to come. In May of this year we moved into new larger facilities in Irvine now occupying a freestanding 8,000 square foot building. This move anticipated hiring additional programming and client service staff to take OfficeMate "to the next level".
Beginning the first quarter of 2004, Violet Baker, our Director of Client Services, and her team of client service professionals will begin taking "live" help desk calls. No longer will you be put into a queue and wait for a callback! We are hiring and training additional staff members as I write this message.
Additional programmers have also joined Rob Adams, Vice President of Development, and the development team! We have addressed the HIPAA security and transactions challenges during 2003. Now we’re just waiting to see what CMS, payers and the industry in general intends to do with HIPAA regulations!
What’s coming in 2004? Many new enhancements to OfficeMate, a brand, new fully integrated version of ExamWRITER, our eyecare electronic medical records software! It will be the BEST EMR for an ECP, hands down. We will keep you up-to-date on the beta testing progress and notify you via e-mail of a pre-release discount offering you will want to take advantage of!
Also during early 2004, OfficeMate will introduce diagnostic equipment interfaces with Marco, Huvitz, Optomap and more will also be announced!
And finally, yet most importantly, OfficeMate is setting up a formal department of Training and Education within OSSU (OfficeMate Software Solutions University) headed by Marci Miller. Marci and her team will focus on all aspects of how you efficiently learn and implement OfficeMate in your business. Internet-based, live training sessions and pre-recorded sessions available 24x7x365 for your convenience will be introduced.
Visit our web site frequently at www.officemate.net to stay up-to-date on what’s going on at OfficeMate! The entire staff here at OfficeMate is fully committed to making our products and services the best available to the eyecare business community. We want your feedback, too! Do not hesitate to share your ideas with us at feedback@officemate.net…we are listening!
Once again, Happy and Healthy Holidays to you, your families and staff!
C. Edward Buffington, Chief Executive Officer
Ed@officemate.net
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Significant enhancements have been made to OfficeMate’s inventory module including simplified menus for easier navigation. Inventory improvements make finding, adjusting, ordering and receiving frames and contacts much easier and intuitive. More and more OfficeMate clients are now recognizing the benefit of using a perpetual inventory system. Bar code printing and scanning facilitates inventory control providing valid data about product movement and security.
OfficeMate Version 4.5 has been guided by local and national advisory panels of ECP’s and their staff members using the specific functionality each and every day. Utilizing Internet technology, focus groups and everyday input from our thousands of clients, OfficeMate is more responsive now than ever before meeting our client’s daily practice management software needs.
Look for the announcement of OfficeMate’s new electronic medical record, ExamWRITER 5.0 early in 2004! Developed by Ian Lane, O.D. OfficeMate’s Vice President of Professional Services and Frank Puzio, O.D., OPIS founder and consultant to OfficeMate, and reviewed and tested by both local and national advisory groups, this new version will set the standard for an eyecare clinical record.
In addition to it’s full integration with OfficeMate, Rx data entry will be simple and intuitive with the use of newly developed "controls" that maintain a consistent orientation throughout the program.
ExamWRITER 5.0 will feature all new graphical templates providing easier navigation throughout the patient’s exam record. Pre-defined templates will also allow simple customization to provide formats to coincide with a doctor’s specific patient demographic. In addition to the template used to quickly create a new exam, previous exams may be carried forwarded for new exams allowing rapid updating of a patient’s file without compromising the integrity of the previous record.
Selected diagnostic equipment from Marco, Huvitz and Optos and others in development will interface with ExamWRITER 5.0 providing more streamlined and accurate Rx data. ExamWRITER can be run chair side with a wireless table PC making your office a technology center your patients will admire!
Look for the announcement in early 2004!
Ian Lane, O.D., Vice President, Professional Services
Ian@officemate.net
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In 2004 we are fully committed to helping you make more effective use of OfficeMate. To help you take the next steps, OfficeMate is establishing a formal Department of Education and Training within OfficeMate Software Solutions University.
We will be contacting you directly with an update on the new services available during the first quarter of 2004. Featured among these services will be Internet-based, "pre-recorded" training modules on virtually every aspect of OfficeMate.
You, your current staff and new staff will be able to view these modules on a 24x7x365 basis from work or home and when it’s convenient!
If you prefer more personalized training, additional "live", Internet-based training will also be offered tailored to your practice. And if you want onsite training right in your office, this too will be offered in 2004!
Look for the OSSU mailing early next year or visit our web site at www.officemate.net for more details!
Marci
Miller, Director, OSSU
Marci@officemate.net
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How secure is your data? The idea is simple; you back up your data on a daily basis to protect your practice. Easy enough, right? Wrong. Proper data backup is a process filled with the potential for failure. Media can be damaged or lost, hardware can breakdown, be stolen or damaged, staff can simply forget to back up, neglect to verify the success of the back up or forget to store the back-up off-site. If any of these items occur your data is at risk. You never realize how important your data is until it’s too late. So what’s the solution? DataHealth. For a low monthly fee you can feel certain and secure knowing that your data back ups are being done properly and regularly. Through the Internet, DataHealth will access your patient data, extract, compress, encrypt and confirm that your data has been successfully saved. If a data backup is unsuccessful, you’re automatically notified of the problem. In addition, you receive a weekly log detailing the status of your back-ups. In the event of a catastrophic data loss within your practice you can restore your data with the push of a button. DataHealth is economical, convenient, HIPAA compliant and is simply the easiest and safest way to back up and store your practice data. It is also a great complement to you present onsite backup, too!
Success can be as simple as working smarter not harder. JambaTalk brings a new level of intelligence into managing and performing tasks traditionally labor intensive and tedious, yet critical to your business. JambaTalk, using the Internet, communicates with your OfficeMate database to select patients due for appointments, recalls and product pick-ups. Then using telephone and voice activation technology, your new virtual staff member, Amy, calls your patients automating tasks that typically take two hours or more of staff time each day! In performing appointment reminders and confirmations JambaTalk will remind the patient of the appointment, verbally confirm the status of the appointment or if necessary reschedule the appointment all automatically. Once the calls have been placed you receive a detailed summary of the call results. JambaTalk also allows patients to self- schedule through the Internet giving your practice another service that customers use and appreciate. |
Effective recall is proven to be one of the most effective methods to build and maintain a practice. JambaTalk performs your recalls in one of two ways. The most cost effective method for communicating with patients is through e-mail which is the first phase of JambaTalk’s intelligent escalation. If an e-mail address doesn’t exist JambaTalk will then perform recalls through its automated calling system. Recall costs are dramatically reduced by eliminating cards, letters and postage.
Bringing JambaTalk into your office is simple and convenient since it requires no additional hardware or software. Your patients and your staff will love JambaTalk!
Would you like a flat monthly fee, OfficeMate-integrated, "all payer" solution for your insurance claims? Using the OfficeMate fee slip data, you can easily and automatically send all of your insurance claims to one source, Gateway EDI. If electronic submission is available, claims are sent electronically. If no electronic submission is available, your claims are printed on CMS-1500 forms and sent to your payers. Are you processing your insurance claims in the most efficient way possible? Would you like to decrease the time between claims submission and reimbursement by as much as 50%? Improve cash flow and save staff time with electronic claims processing. Standard Medicare payment of non-electronic claims is 28 days yet claims submitted electronically are typically paid within 14 days. If your staff spending an excess amount of time preparing insurance claims, having to make corrections then resubmitting, Gateway EDI is the solution. Gateway EDI is the premier HIPAA compliant electronic claims interchange provider having serviced over 3,800 offices across the US. As a subscriber you receive separate report categories for accepted and rejected claims which are also grouped by payer and a safety net report to ensure that rejected claims get resubmitted at no extra charge. If processing insurance claims is a nuisance in your office, OfficeMate and Gateway EDI is the answer! Bill Hatch, Director, sales and Marketing 800-269-3666, extension 5009 |
Many OfficeMate clients are replacing their old computer systems! "What should I buy now with an eye towards the future?" is becoming a common question.
Looking to OfficeMate’s near term, one change will be a move to a higher default screen resolution than the current 800 x 600 requirement. Almost all monitors including flat panel LCD monitors, notebooks and tablet PC’s today come with a standard screen resolution of at least 1024 x 768 pixels.
Future versions of OfficeMate will require this as well. Why? The larger display allows us to create more intuitive screens that combine information into one screen instead of several. They also will allow us to create resizable screens that will allow the user to stretch the screen to take advantage of the increased viewing area.
Another change will be to require either Windows 2000 or Windows XP operating system. These systems are more stable and robust then the earlier Windows 95/98/ME. This is a true "win-win" for both you and for OfficeMate since theses operating systems crash far less frequently.
Visit our web site at www.officemate.net frequently for up-to-date information of hardware and system recommendations.
Rob Adams, Vice President, Development
Rob@officemate.net
