RE: [Hardhats-members] Newbie: VistA billing?

[Sowinski, Richard J.]

Vista does billing, but I believe it is one of the more VA-specific modules. It is that way, because of the eligibility rules, because limits on charges are set by Congress, and because VA cannot bill Medicare. It has also not evolved too much over the past few years, because the VA itself is planning a replacement of it, so it's been in what we call "deep maintenance" mode.   Maybe Vista Office is different. I don't know. I don't know if Billing is part of the Suite, or if it has been modified by the contractor, developing Vista Office.   What I can tell you is that there is a pretty robust set of routines that goes out and mines the database (nightly) for items to bill. It probably wouldn't take much to make that module less VA-specific, if that is what is needed.   It's my belief that a cottage industry of add-ons and enhancements to Vista Office will spring up. Best of breed solutions will be developed, to replace some of the more VA-specific and neglected parts of Vista.   We're at the inflection point right now.   From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Chris Cioffi Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2005 2:25 PM To: hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: [Hardhats-members] Newbie: VistA billing?   Hello all,   Like many people, this morning I heard about VistA for the first time and am trying to get my head around what, exactly, it does.    I understand that it handles electronic medical records.  Very cool.   How about the rest of the functionality needed by a multi-location practice. Specific areas of interest:   -Scheduling:  Can it handle the day-to-day scheduling of patients?  Also, can it schedule alerts and reminders for when staff need to followup with patients?   -Billing:  I see it does billing, does it produce HIPAA compliant X12 837 claims?  Can it handle 835 remits?   -I see that the "update" coming in August is a Windows installer.  Is Mac OS X/Linux/Unix support available, if not in the base product?   I've looked at http://www.vistasoftware.org/ and http://www.hardhats.org and both talk more about the technology and not the solutions it offers.    That this is available and being publicized is very cool and I think this may be a *huge* step forward for the US medical industry, I'm trying to figure out how huge. :)  Thanks!   Chris Cioffi -- "Obviously crime pays, or there'd be no crime." -- G. Gorden Liddy