Customizing Your Settings in AcuBase Pro (All Categories, Long Post)

The Settings section of AcuBase Pro is the central repository of your preferences for the way your practice interacts with the many different functions of the program.  We refer to it variously as both Preferences and Settings. We recommend that you fill in as many of the Settings options as possible for your practice before you begin using the rest of the program, as a set up in Settings cascade down through all aspects of AcuBase Pro.  Once you are actively using AcuBase, you may always return to the Settings by clicking on the Settings button (which looks like a small wrench) on the top-right corner of any screen.

From within Settings, click on the appropriate tabs to get to that specific setting section.

 

Company Settings

The Company and General Settings section of Settings is where you set up general settings that filter throughout the program.  These settings should be set up before actively using AcuBase Pro.

    Company Setup

Enter Company name, address, etc. This refers to the company that owns the program, and is not what filters down into invoices.  Fill out the Providers Setup to do that.

    Providers Setup

An unlimited number of providers/practitioners may be kept in AcuBase Pro.  Once you have added providers, their names will show up on the provider list, and you may click on the name to see or edit details related to that provider.  Each patient is assigned a provider, and provider information entered here in the Providers Setup filters down into related invoices and reports.

The Tax ID Number field refers to the type of ID number being used (Social Security No. or EIN number), and the type should be identified using the ID Type field.  This field also determines which box is checked on Line 25 of the HCFA 1500 form. 

The ID Number fields and NPI (National Provider Identifier) are new fields that refer to lines on the new CMS 1500 form. 

Important Note:  Be sure that you have entered provider information here before you begin entering patient information.  One of the first things you will enter in a patient record is the provider assigned to that patient.  If the provider preferences were not entered before the patient was put into the database, provider information will not show up in box 33 of the HCFA 1500 form.  You will have to go back and reassign the correct provider to each patient in the database to fix this. 


General Settings

    Starting Point…

AcuBase Pro continues to open to this splash screen until you specify which tab it should open to.  Outside of the first-time open splash screen, you may choose to have the program open to the Patients, Calendar, or Invoices tab. 


    Account Management

This is where you may manage all aspects of role-based user names and passwords.  “Role-based” means that different users will have varying levels of access to different parts of the program based upon their security clearance.  Most Account Management functions assume that the user has sufficient rights as Manager to execute them.  Note that many of the following account management activities (adding, deleting, activating, deactivating, resetting) require the user to be logged in as Manager to have sufficient rights to do them.  The Manager login is for account management only, and will not allow the Manager to anything else in AcuBase Pro.

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE:  All default passwords that came with the program may be found on the AcuBase Pro CD in the Documentation folder, in the “Passwords” document. If you change the master password and somehow forget or lose it, Trigram Software cannot recover it for you.  It is incumbent upon you as a responsible user and business owner to keep passwords in a safe place. 

To change Account Management functions, click on the function from the list and click on the “Manage” button.  Account Management functions are as follows: 

               Add Account

Click on Add Account and the Manage button to add new accounts to AcuBase Pro.  You will be given a new window with three fields. 

The first field is a pop-up list of existing accounts.  Go to the bottom of the list and choose “Edit…” to add the new account name to the list.  Then click OK and choose the new account name from the list.

Next, go to the Privilege Set field to set the level of access for this new user.  Each of the levels of security/privilege are listed for you to choose from in hierarchical order.  Manager has full security and rights to manage accounts, as well as use any part of the program.  You can choose other rights as you see fit.

Enter the password for the new account.  Passwords are case-sensitive. 

Once the new account has been created, a text document with the name of the new account, its privilege set, and password is produced and placed upon the desktop of your computer for your reference.  Keep it in a safe place with all of your user passwords.


               Delete Account

This is obvious enough.  Be very careful when deleting Manager accounts to be sure that you have at least one Manager account at all times.  You may not delete the account you are currently logged in as.


               Reset an Account’s Password

Change the password for a given account that is not your own.  This is a management function for situations where someone has forgotten their password, and the manager wishes to reset it, or if an employee leaves and the manager wishes to keep that employee from accessing the system.

You do not need to fill out the account’s privilege set field in order to change the password. .

Once the account password has been changed, a text document with the name of the new account, its privilege set, and password is produced and placed upon the desktop of your computer for your reference.  Keep it in a safe place with all of your user passwords.


               Change Your Password

Change the password of the user who is currently logged in. 


               Activate/Deactivate an Account

This is useful for when you do not wish to have a given user access the system for whatever reason.  If a user is going to be out of town for a while, you may also wish to deactivate and later reactivate their account.  Only users with Manager privileges may use this function.

Assuming you are a manager, you need only choose the account name from the list and click Continue.


               Re-Login

The re-login function is the same here as it is on the bottom of every non-calendar screen in AcuBase Pro.  Click Re-Login to log in as a different user than the user already/currently logged in.  


     HIPAA Log File

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) requires that billing and practice management software have controls over who can use and view health-related data, as well as auditing what changes have been made to the data and by whom.  AcuBase does this in the Patients section by requiring users to click on an “Edit” button, which allows access to edit fields, but also writes changes to a log file that can be reviewed at any time. 

The HIPAA Log File On/Off setting does not turn off the log file, but rather turns off a pop-up which appears on the screen after changes are made.  This pop-up allows users to specify why a given change was made.

Click on the Open button to view the log file for HIPAA audits and/or to review changes made to patient records. 

As time goes on, the log file will get larger and larger. You should clear it every so often by backing it up using the Clear link, which saves a copy of log text to your computer and clears the log file database.


     Backup AcuBase Pro

Clicking on this button makes an immediate backup of the AcuBase file to the Backup folder within the AcuBase Pro directory on the computer. The date and time of the last backup is recorded here as well.  Each time you close the program, AcuBase Pro will ask if you wish to make a backup.  We recommend that you further back up the whole AcuBase folder onto a CD, Zip disk, or some other removable media so that, if something goes wrong with your computer, you can always load the backed-up program onto another machine without losing data. Simply backing up the AcuBase Pro folder/directory (with the program CLOSED) will save all data related to the program.  Mac users, copy the AcuBase Pro folder from your hard drive to your backup media.  PC users, back up the AcuBase directory, located at C:\program files\trigram software\AcuBase  (where “C:” equals the letter of your hard drive).

It is essential that you keep a backup of all files related to AcuBase, as well as any and all other mission-critical files that you use.  This is your responsibility as a businessperson and a prudent computer user.  The makers of AcuBase Pro ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR DATA LOST WHEN NO RECENT BACKUP HAS BEEN MADE AND SAVED TO BACKUP MEDIA. 


     License Code

AcuBase Pro is licensed on a yearly basis, with different license fees depending upon whether you are using the program on only one machine, or on a network.  Upon registration, you will be given a license code, and this is where you go to enter it.  Simply click on the License button, and Update, to enter the code.  Expiration information appears to the right of the button.


     Activities

This is where you customize default information related to activities such as SOAP notes, call records, progress reports and the like. Click on the “Select an Activity” pop-up list to choose an activity to customize, or scroll to the bottom of the list and select “Edit…” to add as many new activities as you wish. 

Once you have selected an activity, click in the “Default Notes for This Activity” field to customize the default notes for that activity.

Once you are in a patient’s record, you will see an Activities tab that will give you this same pop-up list of activities to assign to the patient, and the text entered here will automatically populate that activity for that patient and be modifiable for each specific use. 

Calendar Settings

The Calendar Settings section relates to the functions of the Calendar (Calendar tab) in AcuBase. 

     General Calendar Settings

 

The Start Week On Monday (instead of Sunday) does just that within the Week View screen when this box is checked.  The “Yes” box is checked by default.

Select Current Date on Start Up will automatically send you to the current date the first time you open the Calendar, rather than leaving you on the last screen viewed. The “Yes” box is checked by default.

Show Conflicts on Schedule will show a red line alongside conflicting appointments. This slows the program down a bit, but the “Yes” box is checked by default.

Empty Patient Filter Shows is set to “All” by default. When you add a patient to an appointment, it will show all patients in the database (All), or will show none and wait for you to type the first few letters of the last name to show them.  If you have many hundreds or thousands of patients in the program, you may wish to set this option to “None” to avoid waiting for the full patient list to populate.

Show Appointment Times Starting At allows you to choose what time the schedule shows that it starts at on Weekly and Schedule screens.

Show Full Backgrounds:  Setting this to “Yes” will leave the calendar data visible in the background when new items are created. This is somewhat slower for the program, and is set to “No” by default.


     Week & Schedule Views

     The Two Kinds of Week Views

Our basic week view shows the 7 days of the week as 7 vertical columns with the appointments for each day listed below the day.

On our “fancy” week view we place each appointment vertically within the day’s column at a point corresponding to its start time and draw that appointment in a curved rectangle whose length corresponds to the appointments duration. This view looks best when the calendar is tightly filtered (perhaps showing just one user’s appointments) so that there aren’t too many overlapping appointments. While the “fancy” week view only shows 5 days at a time, a “Show Weekends” button in the upper left will “scroll” the week to the right so that you can see the weekend.

Note that the “fancy” view will only show appointments that have a start time, where the basic week view will show all appointments, even if they have no times assigned.

Use Basic Week View is set to “No” (“not fancy”) by default, as it is much faster and shows all appointments. 

Default Level of Detail for Week and Schedule views shows only basic (title of appointment) information when set to “Less”, and Patient and Provider information when set to “More”.  The program is set to “More” by default, even though it is a bit slower, in order to be sure to show patient information on as many screens as possible.

Default Scale refers to the default scale in minutes down the left side of the Week and Schedule view screens. It is set to “half hour” by default.

You’ll also find default detail and scale buttons at the bottom of the Schedule and Week screens to change the detail and scale as you work.

Enter your Default Appointment Length (in minutes) to auto-enter how long an appointment lasts (which may always be modified for a given appointment if you wish to make it longer or shorter).


     Staff, Resources, Types & Colors

The gray subtab bar on the top-right side of the Calendar settings screen allows you to click between these three kinds of settings. 

     Staff

Enter all staff, providers, and/or users who will use the calendar so that appointments may be assigned to them. Add both providers and regular staff to this list--add anyone for whom you’d like to make appointments by clicking into the existing list fields to change them, or by clicking on the green “New Staff” button to add users.  You may add as many users as you like. 

Each user of the calendar is required to have unique initials that refer to them. The calendar uses initials as Keys when filtering appointments.

Setting the Default Appointment Length will automatically set the End Time of appointments made for a given user when their initials are checked on the Edit Appointment screen (when making an appointment for that user or practitioner).  


        Resources

“Resources” may be set up as anything from a room to a provider, and are best assigned when multiple providers and/or multiple rooms are being scheduled.  Resources show up by default across the top of the Schedule view, and are great for when you want to show the daily schedule for multiple rooms and/or providers side-by-side.

Resource abbreviations are used on the Daily View of the calendar where there is no room for the whole Resource Name.

Add the initials of your providers here as well and assign them the type “provider”. Then you’ll be able to use the resource filter on the Schedule tab to show your day by room OR provider.

If you can think of other uses for the Resources across the top of the Schedule screen aside from Room or Provider, feel free to add those to  the Resource Types list.

If the term “Resources” just confounds you and makes you mad and you really want to use a different word to refer to Resources, you can change the word, its plural, and abbreviation on this screen as well.  In all seriousness, this may be useful if you choose to only assign Resources as Providers, for instance.  Then you can change it to “Providers”. Or Rooms.  Whatever you like.  You’re the boss here.

Click on the New Resource or New Resource Type buttons to create new ones, or simply click into the lists to edit existing ones. 


     Types & Colors
 
The appointment types and colors subtab is where you may edit the types of appointments which you may assign to any given appointment.  Some examples are included by default. Each time you assign a calendar entry a Type, it will show on the calendar in the color assigned to that type.  Add as many types as you like on the list to the left, and as many colors as you like on the right by either editing existing entries (clicking into them), or clicking on the New Type or New Color buttons. 

lf you do decide to add new colors, be sure they are at least 25 pixels high and 888 pixels wide. 

Types and colors show up on the Legend for reference at the bottom corner of every main calendar screen. 

 General Billing Settings

The General Billing Settings section relates particularly to the functions of the Invoices section of AcuBase Pro.

 

   Default Invoice

The Default Invoice allows you to select the to select whether you tend to print general superbills or HCFA 1500 forms most frequently, and adjusts the inner program defaults accordingly.  Newly created patient cases, as well as invoices, will default to this setting, but can also be further specified/changed for each case or invoice.

     E-Billing Yes/No

Electronic Billing Setup is set to “No” by default. If you wish to use the electronic billing capabilities of AcuBase Pro, you must set E-billing to “Yes” before you are able to bill electronically.  If you are interested in using electronic billing, please follow the instructions in the Electronic Billing section of this user’s manual.

     Billing Statement Footer

This option allows you to change the message that appears at the bottom of invoice statements you may send to your patients. 

     Tax Settings

The Procedures Tax and Products Tax fields allow you to set default tax amounts for products and services that you provide, which will show up in both the inventory database and on invoices, respectively.  Note that taxes on each product and service may be changed within each record, as well.  Tax percentages must be entered in decimals.  So, if your products are taxed at 5%, you would type “.05” rather than simply “5.”  Note, too, that, while a Products tax rate may automatically be entered when adding a new item to inventory, if the tax rate is later changed, it will not change the tax rate on previously entered inventory items.  These items will need to be changed manually.

If the tax rate you charge for products changes, you may change the rate in the Products Tax field, and then automatically assign that new rate to all existing inventory without having to change each item manually in the inventory database.  To do this, once you have changed the Products Tax field to the new rate, click on the button next to the field.

     Auto-Enter Adjustments

Set this field to “Yes” if you wish to have AcuBase automatically enter the difference between a payment and the total outstanding for a given line item on the Invoices Payment screen.

By default CMS form policy, descriptions of procedures are not required on the CMS 1500 form.  If you wish to have procedure descriptions show up on superbills and on the gray lines in box 24 of the CMS form, set this option to “Yes”.

     CMS 1500 Form, Box 24

The CMS 1500, Box 24 option allows you to enter default information that will automatically flow through to patients’ default settings in Cases (see the Cases section under the “Using the Patients Tab” section for more on Cases).  Though you may have parts of your invoice auto-entered, you can still change those fields on each invoice if you wish. 

Billing Codes Settings

The Billing Codes tab gives you access to both Procedure (CPT) and Diagnosis (ICD-9) codes. These are the lists that pop up when using the Patients and Invoices sections of the program. 

 

You may choose to sort the codes alphabetically by description or numerically by code by clicking on the field name at the top of the list. Click into any of the procedures or diagnoses listed to edit them, as well as adding modifiers, prices, tax amounts (%--must be entered in decimals) for each procedure, and your own codes.  To create new procedures or diagnoses, click on the New Code button above the code list.  You will be given a blank line at the bottom of the list of codes to put in a new entry. The lists will automatically re-sort as soon as you click outside of them.

You may view either list in its entirety for the purposes of doing Finds or sorting or printing them by clicking on the List button.

Delete a code by clicking on the trash can (Delete) icon at the end of the line in question.

There are typically thousands of possible diagnosis codes which users in different clinical settings may wish to have at their disposal.  Because most offices use a handful of diagnosis codes frequently, a small “Use” box appears to the left of each diagnosis.  Select or de-select the codes you wish to have pop up in code lists throughout the program. You may click on the Select All/None button to select or deselect ALL codes in the program.

As a courtesy, AcuBase Pro comes with current ICD-9 and many CPT codes already entered, but it is your responsibility as a professional to make sure you code your billing correctly.

Codes change yearly, so many of the codes that initially came with AcuBase may no longer be current.  New code sets are typically available in October of every year. If you wish to download the latest codes into AcuBase, you may do so from our website by clicking below or going to http://www.trigram.com/coding.htm. The “Update Now” button on the Billing Codes Settings screen will give you the option of going to our website to download the codes (Update Now).  A “DiagnosisCodes.csv” file will be downloaded from our site and should be saved to your desktop.  Once it has been, click on the “Update Now” button again and click OK to load the codes from that file into the program. The year of the current code set will show under the Diagnosis section on this Settings screen. 



Insurance and Referral Sources Settings

The Insurance and Referral Sources settings are places for you to enter commonly accessed insurance company and referral source information.  These settings allow you to enter an unlimited number of insurance companies or referrers, keeping this information current in one place so that it may accurately be auto-entered into the appropriate places in the Patients database. Click on the “New” button to create a new record. Edit any record by clicking on its name from the list of available entries.  Delete an entry by clicking on the trash can (Delete) icon on the far right side of the line.  Click on any entry on the list to see more information related to that entry.

The patients associated with the insurance company and/or referral source (assigned from within the Patients tab) will show up in a list under each company or referrer when you select that company or referral source to edit.

When viewing individual Insurance Company or Referral Source entries, return to the main Preferences section by clicking on the Back button or on the small wrench icon on the top-right side of the screen.
 


Archives

Rather than simply deleting old patients, you may choose to archive them. If you choose to archive the patient, their record will no longer appear in AcuBase’s Patients area, but billing and calendaring references will remain intact, and you may bring the patient back into the database by going to this tab in Settings. 

On the left side of the Archive screen is an alphabetical list of all patients currently active in AcuBase.  Click on a patient name from this list to remove it from being active and to archive it.  Once archived, that patient’s record will appear on the list on the right side of the screen (archived patients). Archived records may be brought back into AcuBase by clicking on any of the name in the archived patients list, which will remove it from that list and bring it back into your active patients list both on this screen and under the Patients tab. 


Vendors

The Vendors tab allows you to keep track of vendors you may frequently use when ordering supplies which will be placed into the Inventory database (under the Inventory tab).

The Vendor settings allow you to enter an unlimited number of vendors / suppliers, keeping this information current in one place so that it may accurately be auto-entered into the appropriate places in the Inventory area of AcuBase Pro. Any items in inventory associated with a given vendor (assigned from the Inventory tab) will show up in a list under each company when you select that company to edit.

Click on the New Vendor button to create a new record. Edit any record by clicking on its name from the list of available entries.  Delete an entry by clicking on the trash can (Delete) icon on the far right side of the line.  Click on any entry on the list to see more information related to that entry.

The inventory items associated with the vendor will show up in a list in t˙e vendors’ edit window.

When viewing individual vendor entries, return to the main Preferences section by clicking on the Back button or on the small wrench icon on the top-right side of the screen.