Posted by: Atlas MD

September 4, 2018

What’s New in Atlas? Billing and Enrollment Improvements

In our ongoing efforts to let you run your clinic in the way that makes the most sense for you, we’ve launched a couple new small but large features. A checkbox here, or a radio button there can mean the difference between Atlas.md being a perfect fit, and not fitting at all for some clinics.

For the rest of us, the flexibility these features add will let us know that Atlas will continue to fit perfectly no matter how your clinic grows in the future.

Handling Fee for Prescriptions

You’ve always been able to control the prices for the medications you dispense in Atlas. But a feature that is often requested in support is to add a handling fee to the prescription. Our suggestion at support has always been to divide your handling fees across your inventory and just raise prices a bit.

That amounted to more work for some clinics, and Atlas is definitely not about making you do more work… Or math. Now you can add a handling fee for your prescriptions in Atlas.md. It’s as easy as filling in a blank under your settings. Everything else is automatic. Read more about prescription handling fees here.

Shorter Patient Enrollment Form

There’s no way around it. Eventually you have to collect a lot of data about a new patient joining your clinic. Previously that information was all collected at the time the patient joined your clinic.

But some doctors worried that they were throwing just too much at a new patient. Billing info, contact info, health history, family history, medications. On and on. It’s all vital data that you need to collect, but some doctors wanted to reduce the friction at that critical moment when a patient decides to join.

Now you can enable an abbreviated enrollment form for your patients. You can collect only those absolutely necessary bits of information needed for you to contact the patient, and initiate the billing process with them. Read more about the abbreviated patient enrollment form here.

Posted by: Atlas MD

August 28, 2018

What’s New in Atlas? Improvements to the Billing Section

DPC is such a simple concept. But still clinics find many ways to make their businesses unique. One of our most often requested category of features has to do with billing flexibility. So we’re happy to announce two of our most often requested features.

Service Fees
Though many DPC clinics operate under a subscription model, many of our users are also beginning to offer bolt-on services. Procedures and services that go above the standard subscription fee.
Though you could always make special one-off charges to patient accounts, it never quite felt built in.
This week we’re launching a new service fees section inside of your billing tab. It allows you to create these optional services and their corresponding prices.
Then when you perform the service, you can add that charge right to the patient’s invoice with a single click. Learn more about the new service charge feature here.

Enrollment Fees
Another way Atlas users are customizing their billing structure is to add an enrollment fee at the time of patient sign up. Like with Service Fees, you could always hack this with a misc. charge, but it’s better when it’s built in.

Enrollment fees have a separate billing category and have full company coverage support, so companies can decide exactly how they want to cover for their employees.

Now under Settings / Clinic Extra Charges you can specify an enrollment fee. Then when adding a new patient, adding that fee to the patient invoice is a simple checkbox during account creation. What used to be four steps is now one. Better yet, they’re broken out in billing reports so you can see just how they affect the bottom line. Read more about the new enrollment fee feature.

Posted by: Atlas MD

August 8, 2018

Feature Review: Do You Know How Families Work in Atlas?

When you group members of a family together in Atlas, you’re treating them in the most effective way for you and them. You can enroll them together, bill them together, set a head of household who receives notifications and acts as the primary contact, and give them access to the iOS app so they can manage their billing information and even request appointments on their schedule. Need a refresher course on all that? No problem. Watch the video below, or check out the support article.

Posted by: Atlas MD

March 6, 2018

New EHR Study Proves U.S. Physicians Want More Time With Patients.

Physician checking boy's heartbeatInefficiency strikes again, it seems. But not how you might think.

A new study on how much time docs spend using their EHRs released its findings last month. Medscape broke it down and you can read the whole thing here if you want.

The article says EHR time exceeds patient face time in family practice visits. The study results imply that, “US [family physicians] spend more time working in the EHR than their European counterparts spend in the entire visit.”

This could very well be true for a whole lot of reasons. But we see things from another perspective. We think physicians in America are doing what they have to do in order to provide the best care possible for their patients. They’re required to document certain things a certain way, for certain (sometimes inexplicable) reasons. Sure, they could document all the things right there in the exam room with the patient. They could spend a majority of the visit staying caught up for fear of what falling behind will do to their evening (again).

But most of them don’t.

They know they only have a few sacred minutes to serve their patient well, and they want to make the most of it. So they’ll sacrifice their evening (yes, again) just so they can look their patient in the eye. Take time they don’t have to ask some quality questions and do what med school taught them.

It’s not their fault. They’re doing their best with what they have, which is limited time and a lot of mandatory paperwork. The system is broken and docs are among the victims.

These types of articles are full of numbers, and it’s good someone’s keeping track. At the end of the day, though, the results of this study give us renewed hope that more docs will opt for Direct Care instead of letting burnout get the best of them. The heart wants what the heart wants… and it’s not paperwork.

Posted by: Atlas MD

February 12, 2018

Educating the Next Generation: Inviting Med Students and Residents into Your DPC Practice.

When DPC first introduced itself to healthcare, there was a lot of patient education involved. Nobody knew what it was, how it worked, if they could even trust it.

Things have changed quite a bit since 2010, haven’t they?

There are Direct Care practices opening up every day across the country – each serving their community in a unique, personal, transparent way.

Sure, in the grand scheme of things there’s still a long way to go, but Direct Care is finding its way into the homes and hearts of millions of Americans. Which means our duty as practicing DPC providers is not only to our patients, but to the next generation of providers as well. There are any given number of traditional healthcare environments a med student or resident can walk into and get a glimpse of. We need to make sure we open our doors to them as well. But we have to take it a step further. Read more

Posted by: Atlas MD

November 6, 2017

What’s New in Atlas.md? Faxing PDF Attachments, That’s What.

We’ve been excited about releasing this feature for a while now, and we know you’ve been looking forward to it, too. Today we get to share the good news that you can now fax PDF chart attachments right from Atlas.md. We have big plans for expanding this feature’s reach as time goes on; this is juuust the beginning.

So here’s how it works.

When you upload a PDF to a patient’s chart, you’ll now notice a fax icon over to the right. From there, the process is just like you’re used to.

It’s cost-effective, too.

Faxing costs your practice 7 cents per page. Before you send the fax, you’ll see an estimate of your total, so you’ll know exactly what you’re being charged. Full transparency is the name of the game, so you’ll also find your cost included in your clinic’s next subscription billing cycle, using the credit card you already have on file with Atlas.

Let’s talk about file size.

We know you guys are super efficient, so you probably won’t run into a size problem… but just in case we thought we’d mention it. You can fax pretty much anything, as long as it’s under 20 MB, and under 200 pages. Anything bigger or longer than that won’t go through. If it did, we might feel sorry for the guy on the other end of the fax…

So that’s all there is to it! You can now fax PDF attachments from inside Atlas. Now, go play with the new feature. You know you want to.

Posted by: Atlas MD

August 31, 2017

Marketing Your DPC Practice – How Everyone Else Does it.

Marketing Your DPC PracticeThe best marketing strategy is a good business model. It’s a value proposition. Think about it this way: it’s really easy to sell a great product, and it’s really difficult to sell a not-so-great product. Start from the beginning! DPC’s high-value proposition often looks like this: unlimited visits, no copay, free procedures, wholesale meds and labs, up to 95% off and cheaper insurance – that is a huge value proposition that you can sell – no matter what you do, your patients are going to be happier. You’ll find more foundational tips on marketing your DPC practice over in the marketing course of the DPC Curriculum.

You’re Better at This Than You Think. Honestly.

Even though the idea of telling the world all about the great things you have to offer might make your stomach churn, rest assured you already have the skills needed to sell and market your practice. (We wrote all about that over here.) Marketing and sales is largely about having a conversation. Talking to people and answering their questions. You already have the answers, and with knowledge comes confidence.

It’s Time to Walk the Walk.

So once you have that foundation laid, you can do some external marketing. That all sounds good in theory, right? If you’re curious about what that actually means, here are some ideas on places to start networking right in your own community. Read more

Posted by: Atlas MD

June 12, 2015

Are You Caught Up On the Atlas.md Podcasts?

Atlas-Blog29
Need some summer listening material? The Atlas MD docs are easy on the ears, not to mention chalk full of brain food on starting, running and maintaining a DPC clinic. In the latest podcast, Dr. Josh and Dr. Doug catch everyone up on their recent speaking engagements and upcoming events as they continue to spread the word and promote DPC around the country.

Then they give us some really sought after answers to questions everyone’s asking… just maybe not out loud. They provide a full breakdown of not only DPC billing practices, but how billing is handled within the Atlas.md EMR. In addition, the doctors address some of the struggles DPC docs experience with pharmacies – and how we can continue to improve our relationship with pharmacists everywhere.

LISTEN TO PODCAST 22 NOW!

Posted by: Atlas MD

March 12, 2014

Yes, The Customer’s Always Right. And That’s What’s Wrong With Fee-For-Service Medicine.

If you’re a patient dealing with insurance, Stephen C. Schimpff has something to tell you. You aren’t really your physician’s customer. That’s because the insurer will decide whether and how much to pay the physician after they’ve seen you. You’re largely a bystander in the relationship, he says. The doctor’s customer is actually the insurer.

Read more