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In a previous video, we explained how to use TMI's Pending screen to select the claims
that you want to report, or "transmit," to Transworld. Once you've marked several claims
on the Pending screen as "Yes," you're ready to transmit. A word of caution, though: Please
do not transmit your first batch to Transworld until Businet support techs have verified
that your Transworld ID numbers and network settings are configured correctly, and are
on the phone with you to walk you through the process for the first time. This video
is not meant to substitute for that technical support, but we hope it'll familiarize you
with the steps in transmitting batches, and serve as a reference tool in case you have
any questions in the future.
For the first batch that you send to Transworld, we recommend selecting somewhere between 10
and 100 accounts on the Pending screen. It may be tempting to submit hundreds of overdue
accounts right off the bat so you can get the money you're owed, but big batches take
longer to transmit, and spacing out your collection efforts will keep your staff from getting
slammed when phone calls and payments start coming in. In our sample practice, we've selected
3 insurance claims with a total balance of $6,420.25, and 2 self-pay accounts with a
total balance of $167.00. Your list of claims is almost certainly going to be much longer
than our list here, but you can quickly see which claims have been selected by clicking
at the top of the Xmit, or "transmit," column to sort claims by their "transmit" status.
Claims that are marked with green check-marks are the ones that will be reported to Transworld.
To exit from the Pending screen, click the Complete button at the bottom right corner
of the screen. To send the check-marked claims from the Pending screen to Transworld, click
the Transmission Report & Send Batch button at the left side of the TMI main menu. You'll
see several messages about "checking databases," then TMI will display a report of the information
that's about to be sent to Transworld. The first pages of the report show you detailed
information about: each patient, the Dates of Service included in the claim and the balance
for each date, and what type of action is being taken on each of these claims. If you're
transmitting for the first time, in each case the Action column will show "New Collection,"
and whether the claim is insurance or patient responsibility. In the weeks and months to
come, as you receive payments on claims you've reported to Transworld, TMI will find those
payments when it automatically retrieves information from your Medical Manager server each weeknight,
and it will automatically include that information each time you send a batch to Transworld.
Our report includes some examples of partial and full payments that TMI found on claims
that were previously submitted to Transworld.
You can use the Zoom In and Zoom Out buttons to change the size of the text on the report.
You can move up and down using the scroll bar at the right side of the screen, and you
can flip through the pages of the report using the arrows at the top of the screen. The last
page of the report shows a summary of all the information that will be sent to Transworld
in this batch. If you want to print a copy of the report, you can click the "printer"
icon at the top left corner of the screen, but that's not really necessary since TMI
saves copies of all your transmittal reports for you. When you're done viewing the report,
click the circled X icon above the report, or the X button at the top right corner of
the window.
TMI will ask if the report is correct and it's OK to create and transmit the batch.
If you noticed any problems on the report—maybe there was a big claim that you wanted to transmit
today but forgot to mark it "Yes" on the Pending screen—just click the No button, and the
TMI main menu will reappear. The report you viewed previously will be discarded, and nothing
will be sent to Transworld just yet. If you are ready to send the batch, and Businet has
given you the OK to proceed, if this is your first batch—click the Send button.
When you send a batch, TMI will first save a copy of the report you just viewed, then
it will save your TMI data in a file that's "zipped" or compressed to save space. A variety
of status messages will briefly appear as TMI actually transmits your claim data, then
the TMI main menu will reappear. The only thing you need to do during this process is
to not shut down the TMI program. Just wait until the main menu is back, and then you
can close TMI if you like.
As you can see, sending batches to Transworld is fast and easy, and you should get into
the habit of doing it regularly. Transmit at least once a week, and more often is fine.
When you transmit a batch, TMI not only reports new claims to Transworld to start the 5-letter
series, but also notifies Transworld of any changes in the status of claims they're already
working on. For example, if a patient pays off their claim, you don't want them to receive
any further demand letters from Transworld, but Transworld won't know about the payment
until you send your next batch.
If you ever see the Resend Batches button flashing red, this means that a batch you
tried to send to Transworld didn't go through for some reason; maybe your Internet connection
was down temporarily. Don't panic; once your Internet connection is working again, you
won't need to do anything special to send the batch again. You can check your Internet
connection by running a web browser like Internet Explorer or Firefox, and visiting a popular
web site like www.google.com or www.yahoo.com. If you can't connect to the Internet, contact
your technical support staff for assistance. Once your Internet connection is back up and
you transmit a new batch of claims to Transworld, the batch that didn't go through earlier will
automatically be included with the new batch. If the Resend Batches button stays red even
when your Internet connection is working and you just tried to transmit a new batch of
claims, please call Businet tech support, and we'll check things on our end of the connection.
Once you transmit a claim to Transworld, it will disappear from TMI's Pending screen.
As you can see, all the claims that were previously marked with green check marks are gone, but
no worries, they're still in TMI; they've just moved down the road a bit. Let's close
the Pending screen by clicking the Complete button, then take our first look at the Submitted
screen. This is where TMI shows accounts that Transworld is actively working on for you.
The Submitted screen looks a lot like the Pending screen, with some minor differences.
Insurance and self-pay claims are all listed together on one screen, but you can easily
tell one from another by looking at the Plan# column—self-pay claims have a 0 in the Plan#
column. The Status column at the far right side of the screen shows approximately where
each claim is in Transworld's 5-letter series. The number at the end of the status shows
how many letters have probably been sent so far, based on a standard schedule. (The "Projected"
section at the top right corner of the screen shows when TMI expects each letter to be sent
for the claim that's currently selected on the table at the bottom of the screen.) A
status of "demand" means that Transworld is currently sending letters to the responsible
party; "partial" means that a partial payment has been received on the claim.
The Date of Service buttons that you saw on the Pending screen are here as well; just
click on a date to view items associated with that date, then click the Complete button
to close the pop-up window. The Submitted screen also has a Transmits button; when you
select a claim from the table and click Transmits, you'll see a history of the information that's
been reported to Transworld on this claim, like the date and batch number in which the
claim was first reported to Transworld, when changes like payments on the claim were reported
to Transworld, and so on. Click the Complete button at the bottom right corner of the pop-up
window when you're done viewing the transmit history for the claim. Click the Complete
button at the bottom right corner of the Submitted screen to return to the TMI main menu.
There's one more screen in TMI that can be used to view claims: the Historical screen.
This screen lists all the claims that Transworld is currently working on for you—which is
everything on the Submitted screen—plus older claims that Transworld is no longer
working on. For example, here's a claim that's marked P-I-F-T-Y, which stands for "paid in
full, thank you," meaning that Transworld has sent the patient a thank-you note for
paying off the claim. If it's been at least 30 days since Transworld finished sending
the complete series of 5 demand letters on a claim, but no payment has been received,
that claim will be marked "SC," for Service Complete. Once a claim is considered "service
complete," you may want to take some action on it in Medical Manager to keep it from showing
up in TMI again. For example, you might want to write off the balance, or change the Medical
Manager status label on that account to one that you've told TMI to ignore, like "account
referred to collection agency."
You should now have a good understanding of: how to navigate through TMI's Pending screen,
how to transmit batches of claims to Transworld, and how to check the status of claims that
have been sent to Transworld. If you're interested in additional TMI features like temporarily
putting accounts on hold or running reports, please ask Businet tech support to send you
the link to our "advanced features" video, but the skills you've already learned will
let you handle most day-to-day operations in TMI.