MedLook Weekly Tip For 05/24/2007

In most offices with more than one printer it is highly likely that the printers are different (either the same brand but different models or completely different manufacturers). Rarely do two printers print identically. Each printer has some subtle variation. These differences cause a lot of problems when printing to pre-formatted forms such as the CMS 1500 form. The good news is that usually the differences are only relative to shifting the whole page up/down and/or left/right. Unless there is an additional scale factor involved once a page is defined to print properly on one printer it should do so on another with only a whole page shift either up/down or left/right. In the prior tip we noted that to shift the whole page simply edit the Paper section of the layout and change the Top and/or Left parameters appropriately.

Obviously, if you have more than one printer it would be nice to define the printer layout only once and use it repeatedly. MedLook makes this possible and relatively easy. Let's say your primary printer is a deskjet (bad choice, the ink's expensive). Simply get your layout working properly for the deskjet and save it as cms1500deskjet.xml. Next, edit the layout for the laser printer, modify the settings as required but save the layout file under a different name such as cms1500laserjet.xml. When you have to switch printers simply switch to the proper layout using the [...] browse button of the layout field. The only real differences are most likely going to be the Top and Left parameters at the beginning of the Paper section. That's all there is too it. The only caution is to be sure to switch layouts BEFORE selecting the printers.

Multiple printers are cause for multiple layouts. In the same way there may be reasons to use multiple files for your electronic claims. MedLook does provide for each carrier to use one of three claims files per database. These file locations are stored in the layout file. In the Electronic section there are fields titled Claims-File1, Claims-File2, and Claims-File3. These fields are used to specify the output folder and file for each specific set of claims being processed per carrier. Usually all claims are stored together but in some cases multiple files are used for various reasons. For example, it may be necessary to save all Medicare claims in one file (c:\claims\medicare.txt), BCBS claims in another (c:\claims\bcbs.txt), and all remaining claims in yet another file (c:\claims\claims.txt).

This works fine for a single database and as long as the claims are being separated by carrier. However, it may also be necessary to separate the claims per doctor. If you have multiple doctors then you can use the Advanced SQL Filter to process claims only for the specified doctor or doctors. The process flows like normal except when you Save the claims you would have to specify another file name. Instead of c:\claims\claims.txt you may specifiy c:\claims\DrA_claims.txt, etc. While this works fine you could just as easily specify an additional layout per doctor, define the output file only once, and then process exactly as before. This method eliminates chances of error when saving the files, usually caused by a typographical blunder. Of course, just like changing the layout for printers, you would have to change the layout for each doctor when you process the claims. Still, it is probably easier to switch layouts rather than redirecting the output each time you save the claims.