Visual Practice HOW TO

Authors: Robert Book and Jay Patterson

...Create an OHIP Bill

Opening an OHIP Bill Form

Starting from the blank Visual Practice screen, left click with your mouse arrow on the Forms button in the upper left corner of the screen (on the toolbar). A drop down menu will appear. Move down to OHIP Bills which is highlighted and then left click with the mouse, as shown below:

Visual Practice will then display the OHIP Bills Form.

Entering a New Bill with the OHIP Bill Form

If you have not billed any patients before, a blank form will appear, grayed out. If you have patients who are billed in the system the last patient billed during your last session appears on the screen. As shown below, the last patient billed on this particular system is the first one shown. Take a quick look now around the screen to familiarize yourself with the layout.

The screen above shows the New button in the toolbar (located near the top of the Visual Practice window). Clicking your mouse on this button sets the form into data entry mode, so that you can enter a new bill. You will notice the data entry fields will turn from grey to white and yellow. The yellow fields indicate data entry that is mandatory by OHIP for payment.

All the required fields for submitting a bill to OHIP for an Ontario resident are highlighted. The Billing Module is actually divided into two parts. The upper part identifies the patient, provider and hospital information. The bottom portion deals with the actual line-by-line billing to OHIP.

Clicking on the magnifying glass beside the Patient field places you in the patient selection window, as shown below:

If you know the exact name of the patient, you may type the name directly into the patient field; however the information is both case and spacing sensitive. The patient selection window demonstrated above gives you several options on selecting the patient. You may type in the name (last name first) as in the example, and as you type, the window below will flash through the names. Once you find the patient you want, left click on the patient (the name will highlight) then click on Select. A faster way to select the patient once highlighted is to press <Enter> twice.

If you have many patients with the same last name you may have to use the scroll bars to find the proper patient. If you make a mistake and find that you have selected the wrong patient when you are returned to the Billing window, just click on the magnifying glass and re-select the patient.

Assuming that "Patterson, Jeremy" is the patient you want, you then will be returned to the billing window with the patient field filled in. If you originally specified a default provider for this patient when you first entered him in the Patient Registry, that provider's name will automatically appear in the Provider field. If you need to select a provider, the process is identical to the Patient selection method. Click on the magnifying glass beside the field and select an alternate provider.

In our example "Patterson, Jeremy" automatically defaults to "Book, Robert" as the provider, so this field was automatically entered.

Billing OHIP Codes

Clicking on the Add Line button on the lower portion of the window will place the cursor in the item code cell and you may start entering the item code, as shown below. If you need to look up the OHIP Code, click on the Search button located on the toolbar, and a Search window for OHIP Codes will appear. You can select a code from this list. Alternately, if you know the code already, type in the alphanumeric code (A007A) then <Enter> to move the cursor over to the units cell (note the fee is automatically filled in).

If you have seen the patient only once, then you may tab to the date box, or, if you have seen the patient several times, the number of units can be changed to reflect the number of visits you have made.

You can accept the date suggested by the computer, type in a new date, or use the + or - key to adjust the date one day at a time up or down. After the date adjustment press <Enter> to move on to the diagnosis field and enter the diagnosis. The wizard will warn you if a diagnostic code is required for this particular billing code, if you happen to forget. Like the Item code cell, you can click on the Search button on the toolbar to display a Search window for diagnosis codes.

If you feel the code you have billed requires a manual review in order to get paid, you may click in the MR box to flag the billing item, and enter a Manual Review notation in box at the bottom of the window.

If all of the information is correct save the bill by pressing the "Save" button at the top of the menu screen, as shown below. If you make a mistake you can always do a bill update later to correct the bill.

Once the bill has been saved, the fields on the form will turn gray, indicating that the bill has been saved and the form is no longer in data entry mode. You can the press the New button to create another OHIP Bill, or close the OHIP Bill Form by pressing the close window button in the upper right corner of the OHIP Bill Form.