Our old Silverdale phone numbers have now been disconnected.
All of the toll free numbers the patients use remain unchanged.
Administration
Please use our new numbers for all future contact.
Toll Free: 800-585-5242
Phone: 360-394-7020
Fax: 360-394-7099
Department Contact List |
 
Patient Surveys Systems Design has had quite a few requests to perform patient surveys for our Fire and Rescue clients related to the ambulance transports they have provided to their patients. Our IT Department has engineered a simple method that enables our clients' patients to access a list of questions as provided by the fire district. Patients can find a link on the statements we send out and/or a link from the Fire District's website or Facebook page. This link points to the survey online via the Patient web page we have created and host for you. (for example: www.emspatient.com/xyz_fire/) The survey results are then encrypted and compiled into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet which can be forwarded to the fire department either weekly or monthly, whichever is preferred.
There is no cost associated with this service and we can turn it on and off as you wish. |
Providence & OneHealthPort
Providence Regional Medical Center Everett recently invited local EMS agencies to access patient face sheets via their ProvCare web system. In the near future, you might be invited by your local Providence facility to participate. If so, the first step in their registration process is to obtain a OneHealthPort (OHP) ID and login.
We have already established an OHP account for each of our clients in order for us to research patient eligibility and claim status. If you try to register with OHP, you will be referred to our office. Mike Dunn, our IT Director, will be able to set up user accounts for your staff and manage any password or access issues. He can be contacted through our administrative phone line or by email at miked@sdwems.com. |
Billing News...
Holiday Office Hours
The Systems Design Offices will be closed:
Friday - December 24th
&
Friday - December 31st
New E-mail Addresses
You may have noticed that we have recently changed our e-mail addresses to a shorter more 'user friendly' format. The new format is the recipient's First Name & Last Intial followed by @SDWems.com
EXAMPLE: MarkS@SDWems.com
NOTE: If you send an e-mail using our old format, we will still get it.
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Previous Newsletters?
Maybe you missed a earlier newsletter, or want to refer back. Just click on the link below to view our Newsletter Archive page.
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 Fee Schedule Changes for 2011
Information regarding the ambulance fee schedule was released at the end of November. In past years, the ambulance fee schedule was adjusted each year based solely on the Consumer Price Index (CPI-U). Legislation enacted during 2010 now requires the CPI-U to be reduced by a multi-factor productivity adjustment (MFP), allowing for the possibility of a negative change to the ambulance fee schedule. And that is exactly what we have for 2011-a small reduction in the ambulance fee schedule of -0.1%.
On the brighter side, legislation was just signed into law on December 15th that extends the rural and urban bonuses through the end of 2011. This is very good news, as the bonuses were scheduled to expire at the end of 2010. The bonuses are 2% for urban transports, 3% for rural and 22.6% for super-rural.
The new rules on reporting mileage to the tenth of a mile will also have an impact on reimbursement. Be sure to see the Legally Speaking section for information on fractional mileage. |
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Month End Accounting
Systems Design is implementing several enhancements to our month end reports in 2011 (see related article on Internet Access to Financial Reports). Month end reports will show the activity during a one-month time period--transports provided and payments deposited during that month. These new reports will improve your ability to reconcile your monthly bank statements and clearly show your transport activity.
There are two things that you as the ambulance supplier can do to make these reports timely and accurate. First, send your transports for the month to us as soon as possible. If we don't have your transports by the 15th of the following month, we will contact you to check the status.
Second, if you are sending in a batch that includes the end of one month and the beginning of the next month, please divide the transports by month and send as 2 batches. This will allow us to keep each month's work separate. |
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 We are on track to finish the electronic re-registration process, called Total OnBoarding, by the end of the year. Thanks to all of you who responded to the recent email and helped finish this important step. We understand that some of you need to have Medicare's agreements reviewed by legal counsel. As soon as you are ready, just call our administration line at 800-585-5242 and either Shelley or Jody will walk through the registration process with you.
During 2011, all electronic transactions, such as electronic claims and remits, will be moving to a new format. Medicare requires re-registration in order to accommodate this new format. If you have not completed Total OnBoarding with our office, please contact us before the end of the year.
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Sharing Information on Federal & State Standards
Fractional Mileage
Starting with dates of service in 2011, all miles less than 100 need to be reported in tenths of a mile. You are no longer allowed to round up to the nearest whole mile. For example, you will need to report mileage as 7.2 and 12.9 instead of 8 miles and 13 miles.
Your PCR should document the mileage in tenths along with how that mileage was calculated. If you use an odometer to get the mileage, the beginning and ending odometer readings should be documented in the PCR. If you use GPS or some other method, be sure to document what method was used, for example, "9.6 miles by GPS".
Your batch control log will also need to reflect the mileage in tenths. If you use an Excel spreadsheet, you might need to adjust the setting of the mileage column to allow for tenths.
If the transport is 100 miles or more, tenths cannot be accepted and the number of miles must be rounded up to the nearest whole mile. |
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Internet Access to Financial Reports
 Our web report project is complete! We are now ready to provide you with real-time access to your financial reports in a secure, safe environment. This service is completely free to all of our clients. Systems Design will supply you with an account login and password which will enable you to access our secure server through the Systems Design web site. You will then have real-time access to the current financial reports that we send to you each month as well as a complete archive of all of your monthly reports from 2010.
Beginning in January, we will notify you via email when your month-end financial reports are ready. You can then view, print and/or download and save any report. All of the reports will be archived both monthly and yearly for future reference. Beginning in January, and in conjunction with the new web reports, we will also begin providing month-end accounting instead of the cycle-based accounting we have provided in the past. The new month-end reports will be formatted from the first to last day of the month, and all charges and revenues posted and/or deposited within the month will be included in the simpler month-end reports.
The web server project will continue into next phase, which when complete will provide our clients with the ability to drill into other parts of the Systems Design billing application and access additional information and patient accounts. We will keep you updated as to the projected completion of the next phase of the project. |
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