Blumenthal Software

PBSW2 What's New

VISTA problem (2/3/07): Currently, in order to operate any PBSW program (e.g. PBSW24, FixTable, APPTS4) within Vista, you should do the following:

1. Right click the exe (e.g. pbsw24.exe) and select "Run as administrator" from the context menu
2, Right click the exe and set it to run in XP Compatibility mode

It may be possible to modify only the shortcut, and not the exe itself. In any case, I have committed to producing a new compile of the program that will be fully compatible with Vista, probably ready sometime this summer.

VISTA problem #2 was that the HLP file format is no longer supported by Microsoft. I have uploaded a new help file, PBSW24.CHM, to the website; this helpfile will be used by all pbsw24 programs as of 2/5/07. Sometime in March I will make sure that all hlp files are replaced by CHM files. If your pbsw24 needs the format that you dont have, you will get an error message; in that case, just download the other help file from the download page.

Version 2.4 available now for download, as of August 11,2006. The upgrade prices are posted on the home page of the website (Blumenthal Software Home page)

The NPI, or National Provider Identification number, is required on claims sent on or after May 23, 2007.  This applies to Medicare, Medicaid, and all providers who are HIPAA covered, but many insurance companies have indicated that they will require it too. If you want more information about this, visit the http://www.nucc.org/ website or google NPI HCFA.

Version 2.4 with NPI: There's no room for the NPI in the current pbsw2 database, so I will have to change the structure of the data records. While I'm at it, I will also add a CellPhone field for patients, a Fax phone and a Notes field for insurance companies, and other fields depending on user demand. (Let me know what you need!) Here are the changes coded so far.

New policy regarding updates. I still wish not to charge for updates themselves, but I have to defray the expense of the website. Therefore, from now on, starting with 6 months after a new purchase, I will charge a small fee for each update password.

Appointments 4 is available for downloading. Appts4 is a completely rewritten program. There is a very limited demo of the visual interface on the PBSW2 Data Entry submenu. Appointments 4 has a full set of recurrence options, several search methods, and several printout methods. Note that Appts4 uses the same data file version as pbsw2; it actually installs directly into the pbsw2 folder.

In the most recent updates:

v2.4: NPI in box 24J: go to the printjob's Insurance page, and change the box24k field to read "Provider's NPI". (10/27/06)

v2.4: Cell phone field had been omitted on the patient Personal page; it's there now. (10/27/06)

Group Home place of service =14 code added to the location types in the Places table.

PRINTING: I have reworked completely the code that selects the printer when printouts are done. I have eliminated the radio buttons and the edit box for sending output to a textfile. Instead, there is a dropdown combobox that permits you to select the "Default Windows Printer", or a textfile, or a named printer. On my computer, there are two printers installed, so I can see two more entries below the Textfile entry (i.e. Canon Pixma 4000, and HP Laserjet 4p). If you select Textfile, a small dialog box pops up asking for the name of the textfile. The name of the printer or textfile that you select is stored in the printjob record; OR, you can just type in the name and address of the textfile in the combobox (e.g. "claims.txt"). If the update causes a problem with printing, go back to the printjob, select a named printer (which is now the recommended method), and you should be ok. Note, however, that if you try to fool the program by selecting a printer, and then using a hardware switch to change to a different printer, your results will be unpredictable. Bottom line= select the printer by name.

The MedMgr demo program is available. For more information, click here. MedMgr tracks prescriptions for each patient.

Shazam Bug and workarounds: When you want to list one of the Lookup Tables, like Dx or Insurance, PBSW2 calls up the Shazam report generator to do the report. You also can use Shazam to load one of the special reports in the pbsw2 folder. The main menu's printout selection does not use Shazam. If you do use Shazam, and you are on a network, you are most likely going to get an error message that says the files can not be found; that is a bug in the Shazam library, and I have no way to fix that bug since I didnt write Shazam. However, there are two workarounds. Both require that you load the report into the wizard by going to the Main Menu, Report Generator, Shazam, and click the Open button. Then click the SQL tab in the Wizard notebook. You will see some report coding, which could be complex, depending on the kind of report you are trying to print. However, what you need to look for is the name of the file, and edit that. The filename will look something like "\\MyServer\Cdrive\PBSW2\datapatient.dat". Notice that there is no backslash between the word data and the word patient.dat; that is the bug. If you want, just edit that name so that it looks like "\\MyServer\Cdrive\PBSW2\data\patient.dat" (notice the extra backslash) or you can just change it to "patient.dat" with no address at all. The second method might not work, but the first should always work. Unfortunately, no matter which of the workarounds you use, the changed code will not be saved, and you will have to do this every time you use the report template.

INI File Error: PBSW2 saves custom settings like the size and location of the program's screens in a file named PBSW.INI. Windows XP may cause a problem with reading from and writing to that file if the current logged on user does not have Administrator priveleges. If you get this error, you will have to close down pbsw2 and then use a Command Line Parameter (see 3 paragraphs below) of INI to run pbsw2. Note that all Customize settings will be lost, but anyone with Administrator priveleges could simply copy the pbsw.ini file from the Windows or Windows\System folder to the pbsw2 folder to retrieve them.

Appointment scheduler: A new demo and a new update have been posted as of 4/26/04. First update in 6 months.

NSF form: So far, responses to my letter of 4/16/04 has produced absolutely no request for the NSF form. I think at this point it is a dead issue.

Command line parameters: In the last 6 months, there have been a whole bunch of requests for program changes, and rather than create a new version of the program, I have handled them mostly by creating a change in the program that responds to an entry in the Target field of a shortcut. Look at the example immediately below, for Box 32, to see how it works. You could have several parameters; their order is irrelevant.
An example might be "c:\pbsw2\pbsw.exe INI BOX32ALWAYS XXX".

Box 32 regulations appear to have changed. Many carriers are now requiring that box 32 is always filled in. I am trying not to change the database, since I dont want to create a new version of the program. Therefore, I devised the following procedure to be used with the latest update:

  1. Find the icon on your desktop that starts PBSW2.  (If you start PBSW2 from the Windows Start menu, then find that instead)
  2. RIGHT click the icon.  A popup menu appears.  Click Properties.
  3. You will see a notebook.  The shortcut page should be the page that appears, but if not, click the tab that makes it appear.
  4. In the shortcut page, you will see a field that says TARGET.  That field will have something like C:\pbsw2\PBSW.exe in it.
  5. Click in that field, and use the arrow keys to go to the end of the text, and then type in a space followed by BOX32ALWAYS. The result should look like this: "c:\pbsw2\PBSW.EXE BOX32ALWAYS"
  6. Click OK.

A new button on the Financial page lets you change the rank of the Payor records. Heretofore, the rank had to be changed manually, and that produced errors when a duplicate rank was entered.

I've started work on a Medication Tracker. The latest PBSW2 update shows a screenshot in the Data Entry menu. If you have suggestions for features, please let me know.

When starting pbsw2, the HELP file will automatically pop up, at the help's contents page. This should assist some people, and may be annoying to others. If you do not like it, there is a switch on the Customize notebook to turn it off. Or better still, you can simply click on pbsw2, and the help file will go into the background, ready if you need it.

8708: The new methods for avoiding the 8708 error have been implemented now also for payment entry and editing as of 12/31/03. The Customize notebook's Alternate Charge entry checkbox has been changed to read Alternate Charge and Payment dialogs. If you have any doubt as to whether you are actually using the new dialog screens, note that they are colored green instead of the usual gray.

8708 errors occur for a variety of reasons (and for some reason I never get them on my machines!). Sometimes they are caused by errors in the formatting of patient records; like incorrect zipcodes. More often, however, they are caused by a variety of technical problems. I have added an optional entry screen for entering new charges; if you use this screen you should get no 8708 errors when entering a new charge (other data operations like entering a payment or editing an old charge are not affected). You can switch to this screen by going to the Customize notebook and checking the Alternate Charge Entry checkbox at the bottom of the New Records page. If you use this, please give me some feedback; if the feedback is positive I may convert all the entry screens to this new method (it's a lot of work).

An Assignment Grid is now printed at the end of the Wide Ledger report if the Wide Ledger option is selected when printing from the ledger page of the patient notebook. All the assignments are printed, enabling you to review which payments are assigned to which charges.

FixTable has some added capabilities and is easier to use. Download it into the pbsw2 folder and replace the old program.

Customize Notebook: There are two new pages. One, the Printouts page, has several old fields relocated there, and one or two new fields. You should consider strongly clicking the Alternate Method of Separating Items; it seems to work better to separate out the items that belong on separate forms (like services performed in different places, so that box32 is filled out differently). The other page, Global Changes, can be used to change all the place of service codes to the newest list of two digit codes; be warned: these two buttons change the settings in the insurance company records, and if you do not have a backup, there is no way to undo that change.

Statement Balance Column: Usually the balance column on the statement shows the running balance. You can choose to have it display the balance for each individual charge if you set the Charge/Balance field at the bottom of the printjob's statement page to read Ind Balance in Balance Column.

Box 32: Medicare in Louisiana apparently is requiring that Box 32 (place of service name and address) always be filled in. Please tell me if you also have a similar requirement in your state.

HCFA has published a new set of Place of Service codes. These are implemented in the latest pbsw update as of 7/10/03. Please make sure to review your Table of Places to make sure that the Location for each record is correctly defined; there have been some changes in the Locations order. For more information, click here. In addition, note that if you wish to convert all of your current insurance records to use the two digit codes, then there is a routine, on the last page of the Customize notebook, that will do just that. There is also a routine that will change only the insurance company records that are currently using the two digit codes to the new ones. Be aware that if you use either button, you cannot go back the other way, so make sure to have backups.

The Office, the address to which checks should be sent, has always been set as the first record in the Places table. This was not sufficient for some users, so a new customization will let you print in box 33 and on the statements the address of the office referenced in the OFC# field of the provider record.

The Recalc Balances routine in the Files menu will now save the record of changed files to a report in the pbsw2 folder. In addition, although it will inform you of any missing child records, you can turn off that feature if it occurs often enough to disrupt the progress of the report.

HCFA Box 33 Phone number and Medicare: PBS has always had numerous customizations to meet the requirements of different insurance companies, the most significant and far reaching of which were the Medicare modifications. Years ago, some people were getting rejections because I had included the phone number in box 33, so I put code in to prevent the phone# from printing for Medicare forms. Now I understand that Medicare wants the phone#, so I have put it back in. If you have a problem with this, please let me know. (6/12/03)

HCFA log (the list displayed when you print a hcfa form) can now be saved to a text file in the pbsw2 folder. There is a combobox on the Customize notebook that lets you choose not to save, to save all the items, or to save only the items printed. The text file will be named "HCFA Log MMM YYYY" where mmm and yyyy are the month and the year.

HCFA: The HCFA form has many built in special customizations for Medicare, and for some (but not all) Medicaid and Blue Shields. The Medicare special formatting can be defeated by way of a switch on the printjob Insurance page. If you choose the SecureHealth form, then many others will also be defeated so that you get a very plain vanilla HCFA form, which can be sent to SecureHealth, or printed if that is what you wish.

Assignment Grid: The assignment grid has been improved. You can printout the grid contents, and you can email the same printout to support if you have a problem with TPay2Chg table, especially if you get duplicate key violations.

The improvied Error Reports have led to fixing a couple of minor bugs: Error 8709 when doubleclicking the ledger grid, errors of data entry when entering payments.

Email Error reports can be defeated: uncheck the check box at the bottom of the first page of the Customize notebook to prevent the emails from being created.

SecureHealth Electronic Claims Submission: If you are using SecureHealth to transmit claims electronically, please use the new SecureHealth "form" instead of the standard hcfa form when you print insurance forms (go to the print job's Form page and change the Form field). The SecureHealth option will standardize some of the data so that you will not have to worry about changing options when you do ECS.

Repair Table: I moved this back into PBSW2, onto the Files menu. It should no longer be necessary to exit pbsw and use FixTable. However, if you are on a network, please remember that other stations cannot be using a table while it is being repaired. The repair log can be emailed to blumenthalsoftware for support by clicking a new button on the repair dialog.

Backups: PBSW2 will now save a copy of your data when you close the files. The copy is not compressed, and will be saved to a different directory on any given day of the week. That might take up a lot of room on your hard disk, so there are options to suppress the backup if you wish; those options are available on the first page of the Customize notebook. This is not a substitute for a real backup to a disk or a cd that you can store off-site, but it is automated, and provides a minimum of protection.

New Error reporting: I've purchased a very sophisticated error reporting tool. PBSW2 will now log all errors to a central log file, and also will permit you to email the error message immediately, without having to type anything other than your own (optional) comments.

Email PrintJob Settings directly from PBSW2

Appointments: version 1.2 (11/12/02). This looks the same as the most recent updates. However, the program now saves the pbsw account number properly in the acctnumber field of the events record. This will enable better reporting and the addition of other features down the road.

Patient Memo field can now be printed via a button on the upper right corner of the memo.

Patient Cloning was bugged; now fixed.

Statements addressed to Insurance Company or Responsible Person dont print if the Payor record is not checked off to print a statement. That is not changed, but if the statement doesnt print, the log displays why it did not print.

Font Size and bold - the customize screen lets you change it for most grids and for the Patient data entry notebook.

Electronic Claims Submission: I have made an arrangement with another clearinghouse, ClaimsNetwork of RI to provide ECS for PBS users. The advantages are lower costs to you, Windows compatible transmission methods, and HIPAA compliant transmission. Click here for more details.

Font size and bold can now be changed for most grids and entry screens; go to the customization screen.

Appointments: You can now customize the main screen's appearance more by changing the size of the colored gutters at the side of the Day and Week views, and also by changing the font size of the Day view.

Ledger Grid: you can now change the font size and bold style; the change will be temporary, until the next time you use the program; making the change permanent will be coded after I get some comments about the new feature. To change the font, click the ledger tools button and select the change font menu item.

Printing: The large grid that displays the account information during an autorun has been changed to a memory based list, so that printing will be faster. In addition, the LOGFILE.DAT file will no longer be needed and will be deleted in a later update; since the logfile will no longer be used, network users will be able to run autorun reports (e.g. a list and a set of statements) simultaneously without problems of each trying to get the logfile exclusively.

Appointments: A new data field was added to the events table (the table that stores appointments), "pbswacctnum", to make it easier to connect an event with a patient account in pbsw2. This will enable a Shazam report to show (and print if desired) all appointments for a given time period, along with patient information. Eventually, this may lead to the ability to post charges from the appointment scheduler.

Common Lookup Tables: This feature is now implemented in the pbsw2upp dated 9/17/02 and after. The latest help file has a small section describing how you should proceed; look in the help file index for FILESLOC and read the entire topic, but especially the material at the bottom of the page.

Refund amounts were not displayed in the grid; that is fixed.

Appointment Scheduler: You can customize the dayview font somewhat: you can change size and bolding, but so far not the typeface. A day printout has been added. You can now customize the Week printout: start Sunday or Monday, # of days, pack the printing.

PBSW2 Aged Balances on Statement has been a problem and I have completely revised the code for calculating the Aged Balance (8/29/02)

Print from/to Today: Now changes to the "today" assigned by the Main Menu option.

Storage: There was a bug in the retrieve from storage routine, activated only if you had some previously corrupted main files. That bug has been corrected.

Statements: Until now, you could print only one diagnosis (icd or description or both) on a statement. You now can print all four icds of the current diagnoses if you wish. To do so, you will have to do two things: 1: edit the Print Dx on Statement field on the Statements page of the patient, and 2: Setup= before you do that, you will have to do some special work on the patient data file which for now is not automated- you will have to call me. Thus, the ability is now there, but it is a little cumbersome to set up; if you need this I will walk you through it. A later update will do the setup automatically.

Data corruption cleanup routines were added to the PBSW2 Files menu. Look at the help file's Data Corruption and Data Tables pages for explanations of child-parent data structure.

Statements: The balances at the bottom of the page can now be printed only as the total balance.

Appts: Shazam added to the Tools menu.

Sort routine: Several users have had problems with the way the program sorts ledger items. The printing routine from the Ledger page sorted automatically, and the result was unacceptable. That sort routine (prior to printing from the Ledger page) now will be activated only if you also check a checkbox at the side of the print footer when you select the items to be printed. In addition, a more complete explanation of the Sort logic and also of the Swap 2 Ledger Items dialog is now in the Help file.

Statements: Several users have had problems with the routine that calculates and prints the Balance at Start at the beginning of the list of items in the statement. That routine was put in originally because if a statement began someplace where there was no balance forward, then it was helpful to have a starting balance printed. There is a problem with the way the balance is calculated on old accounts transferred from pbs3, so I have put in a new checkbox on the Statements page. If that "Balance at Start" checkbox is checked, then the item will be printed; otherwise it will not. Furthermore, if you are using the Dynamic Balance style in the balances boxes at the bottom of the statement, and the checkbox is not checked, and the first item to be printed is a Balance Forward, then the amount in that Balance Forward will be used as the starting balance.

Click HERE to Switch to DOS printing method is a new button on the printjob's Page Setup page; this will let you switch back to the usual settings for DOS printing, if you have switched to Windows printing and want to return to the original setting. Make sure to review those settings, especially page length.

Printer Alignment Help is a button on the printjob's Page Setup page; it gets you quickly to the help file's advice regarding aligning the paper properly to get the output aligned with the little boxes on the insurance form.

Charge/Balance field in the Statements print job, Statements page, now gives you 3 choices for what prints on a charge line, in the column where payments or credits print: either leave blank, or put in the discount, or the amount paid and assigned to the charge.

Insurance printout: There are some new fields on the Insurance page of the printjob. One will turn off all Medicare formatting, which may be helpful if you are sending your claims to an Electronic Clearinghouse that does "mapping" of the HCFA image. A button on the Insurance page will ensure that box 32 always prints, no matter what; note that this is not yet a field, just a button, so it has to be clicked each time you use the printjob.

Starting Balance: It is now possible to convert pbs3 data to pbsw2, and create a Starting Balance item in the Ledger, so that payments can be assigned to that starting balance. This has always been possible on a one at a time basis; now it can be done globally by running a Ledger report when the TCODE table which contains all the ledger items is completely blank.

Use Last Fee: A new item in the Customize notebook lets you determine whether the default fee at the time you enter a service will be taken from the last time the service was entered (the default method), or from the fee schedule, or from the last entry only if that entry was within the last 365 days. The latter two methods may be particularly useful if you change your fee schedule.

Select Printer at time of printing: You can now select any Windows installed printer from the Printing screen, just before printing.

Select Colors for Balance Amounts: There are three fields in the Customize notebook that let you color the balance amounts in the ledger so that you can easily spot Open, PartPaid, and Closed charges.

PBSW2 now remembers where and how large your windows were when you last used them.

Phone Formatting Changed: In the past, you needed to enter a left parenthesis to enter numbers with an area code. Now, just enter the number whatever way you want (e.g. 123 456 7890 or 123/456-7890 or (123)456-7890) and pbsw will change it to the correct format. If you just enter 7 numbers, then the area code will be obtained from the Usual Area Code field in the Customize notebook.

Find Missing Child Records: A new Files menuitem has been added to assist in fixing data problems.

Calculate Fee by Minutes: A new button has been placed on the Enter New Charge dialog, next to the minutes field. Clicking that button will recalculate the fee by dividing it by 60 and then multiplying by the number of minutes entered. This is useful for forensic work where the fee is calculated by the time spent.

HCFA: print date twice in box 24a: This check box is in the Customize notebook now, so if it is checked, the date will print twice in box 24a for all insurance. This field will be moved to the Insurance Company preferences in a future version.

HCFA: Medicare Format Off: This checkbox on the PrintJob's Insurance page will print a Medicare insurance form just as though it were a commercial form, without all the special formatting for boxes 4, 7, 9, and 11 that Medicare requires. This feature was added to accomodate users whose Electronic Claims clearinghouse required a claims file that looked the same whether the insurance was commercial, Blue Shield, or Medicare. Don't check this box if you are sending paper claims to Medicare.

Statements: Print Letterhead and Patient address at Column: These two fields in the PrintJob's Statements page let you move the letterhead or the patient address to the column at which you want them to print.

Windows Printing Button: This button on the PrintJob's Page Setup page has been enlarged and colored a flamboyant yellow so that noone could possibly miss it.

Help File: New or expanded entries: Export data (e.g. to a spreadsheet) via Shazam. Also, please check Frequently Asked Questions each time you get a new update; there may be additions.

New Fields Planned for version 2.2:

Insurance company Use CPT Suffix to determine if suffixes like AH, AW, etc. are used to distinguish services provided by one discipline or the other.

Insuranc company Fax number

Insurance company: Comments

Insurance company Print date twice in box 24a (as discussed above)

Charge record: Enlarge the authorization field to 20 characters froim its current length of 15

Blumenthal Software Home page

If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please send email to info@blumenthalsoftware.com