CBS Newsletter - Issue 1, Volume 1
WELCOME
Here is the first of what we hope will be a helpful and informative service to your practice.
In each issue, we will offer “Tips & Tricks” for using the software solutions you purchased from us. Perhaps you will find a shortcut for doing your job or will find a way to improve workflow within your office.
Additionally, we will announce new updates, added features, upcoming training seminars and other helpful information to assist you in making the best use of the products and services you need for an efficient practice.
We welcome your feedback and requests as well.
If you have others in your office who you would like to receive a copy of each issue, please send their e-mail address to newsletter@creative-tn.com.
Thank you for your continued business and we truly hope you enjoy and benefit from this new service.
Your friends at Creative Business Systems
Backing up your data - why you need to do it.
The average business has $30,000 worth of computer data. And many of them have little or no backup protection at all. To a business owner, your data is priceless. The loss of your data can put you out of business. In fact, according to Home Office Computing magazine, 30 percent of all businesses that have a major fire go out of business within a year. Seventy percent fail within five years. One of the most important, yet also one of the most neglected areas of computing, backing up your data should be at the top of your offices list of computer “do’s.” Without data backup you are running the risk of losing your data. And it will happen, don't think that you won’t have to worry about it.
- Why should you back up?
Data loss can happen in many ways. One of the most common causes is physical failure of the media (hard drive) the data is stored on. That drive will not live forever. Normally hard drives will live for years without incident, but eventually they can and do fail. It might happen gradually, by more and more bad clusters accumulating until most of the drive is unusable, or it might happen suddenly, the hard drive just dies without warning.
Another possible cause for data loss is power failure or spikes. It can result in loss of the document you are currently working on because you did not save it before the power failed and your PC shut down, or in loss of your entire hard drive because a power surge fried your motherboard and destroyed the file allocation table of your hard drive.
Also worth mentioning is data loss through virus attacks. There are plenty of nasty computer viruses out there that will delete files on an infected machine. That's why virus protection is just as important.
- What data should you back up?
Let's start with your favorite places on the Internet and that long list of bookmarks. How about the e-mail addresses from all your friends? What about that to-do list you wrote? Or how about all those family pictures that you saved on your office PC? Maybe you have critical documents for work, such as a patient records or billing information? What about your finicial software? These are just the most common examples, and I know that after thinking about it for a while you will realize that there is a lot of information you don't want to lose.
The "Set It & Forget It" family of data protection solutions uses the Internet to send encrypted copies of your critical data to our off-site data storage facility, every night, automatically. The system is affordable and secure! Contact us to at 865.688.8187 for a demonstration or just respond to this e-mail.
NPI FACTS:
The date for required use of NPI numbers on claims has been extended to the end of May 2007.
MicroMD software is already compliant for this mandated change. However, in early testing, there are still some bugs at the clearinghouse and carrier level. Our advice is to continue sending claims with the legacy numbers for a while longer and let them get their bugs ‘killed’. We continue to monitor the situation and will keep you updated regularly. If you have not already done so, please apply for NPI numbers for your practice and providers and collect the NPI numbers of all physicians who refer patients to you.
If you use GE Centricity software GE has announced that they will be releasing the necessary upgrade for accommodating NPI numbers by mid April. If we provide support for your Centricity software, we will continue to keep you informed of any progress. At the present time you should make sure you have NPI numbers for your practice and providers and start collecting them from any physicians who refer to you so that when the release is available from GE you will be able to quickly add them to your system.
WATCH FOR NEWS!
We will soon be hosting an informative seminar, “How To Choose an EMR .” The program covers the good, the bad and the ugly of electronic medical records. Dates and times to follow soon.
Tips and Tricks for your office
Remote printing can be a big hassle for your employees that work from home or on the road. Solving this headache can sometimes take hours or even days, not to mention the cost, but if you're having trouble printing to a USB printer at your remote location this fix from Microsoft may just save you some time and hair pulling. Check it out at:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302361/en-us
Do you have a new PC that you just added to your office and need to load TouchChart or MicroMD on but you don't know where to begin. Our Knowledge Base has several articles on doing just that, and should be the trick to get your new machine up and going. Click the links below to visit our Knowledge Base Articles for the software you need to load.
TouchChart
MicroMD
