Genie understands how much time billing takes up in your daily tasks. To save you the time and energy creating individual invoices for your principal providers and assistants, Genie has made the assistant invoicing process as simple as possible.
The assistant threshold value for MBS has increased as of 1 July 2022 and this must be updated in your Genie to reflect this change. The new threshold is $590.25. To change this in your Genie, navigate to Open > Billing Items and input the new Assistant Threshold in the top-right of this window as pictured.
Before you begin
- The Assistant Threshold must be set in Open > Billing Items.
- At least one of the items on the invoice must include the text '(Assist)' in the Description field, or have Assistant Billable ticked in the Billing Items record.
- If you add your own item numbers which you would like to attract an assistant's fee, it is important to tick Assistant Billable in the Billing Items record.
- When billing for assistants who are doctors external to your practice, ensure that they have a record in your Address Book and they must be marked as Assists at Operations
- If you are billing for your doctor as the assistant, the primary surgeon must have a record in your Address Book.
Billing for your provider and an assistant (same invoice)
- Create your invoice for your procedural items as normal.
- At the bottom of the screen, select Include Asst’s Fee. You will be prompted to enter the surname of the assistant.
- Once you have selected your assistant, you will be presented with the fee calculation window.
- Select the fee type you wish to charge and click OK. This will add the assist fee and item to the invoice so that the invoice reflects both the surgeon's items and the assistant's.
- If submitting this invoice to Medicare it will need to be sent manually.
Billing only an external assistant
If you have billed your provider as the main surgeon, but have forgotten to bill the assistant who is not one of your doctors, it is possible to generate an invoice that will allow you to bill for only this assistant item. However, you will not be able to transmit this invoice to Medicare electronically and will still need to send this manually.
- Firstly, create a new invoice and add the main surgical item number as normal.
- Once this has been added, click the Include Asst's Fee button, and enter the name of the assistant.
- Select the correct assistant fee from the list and click OK to add the assistant item to the invoice.
- Once the assistant item has been added to the invoice, highlight the main surgical item and click Delete Item from Invoice.
- Once the surgical item is removed, double click on the assistant item.
- In the Note field, enter the main surgeon's name and provider number, followed by the main surgical items e.g. Surg: Dr Test Test 000000AB Items: 00001 00002.
- Save the changes to the item and print the invoice ready for manual sending to Medicare.
Billing one of your providers as the assistant
If a provider at your practice has assisted another doctor on a procedure, please follow the steps listed below to invoice them as an assistant:
- Create your invoice as normal including only the surgical items.
- Select Invoice as Asst at the bottom of the screen. You will be prompted to enter the surname of the surgeon.
- Once you have selected the surgeon you will be prompted with the fee calculation window as below
- Select the fee to charge and click OK.
- The procedural items in your invoice will be replaced by either item number 51300 or 51303 depending on the aggregate fee of the procedural items. The surgeon's name, provider number (if recorded in their Address Book entry), and the item number will all be inserted into the Notes field in the invoice.
- You can proceed with submitting this claim to Medicare or DVA as per normal.
Things to note before billing through ECLIPSE:
- If the principal provider/surgeon is a doctor from your practice, and you are wanting this provider to receive the payment for both the procedural and assistant items, submit these as two separate vouchers in the same invoice.
- If the assistant is a doctor external to your practice, and this assistant would like to be paid directly, they will need to create and submit their invoice for their item themselves.
Billing for your provider and an assistant (same claim)
- Go to Billing > IMC Invoice Wizard.
- Select the surgeon from your practice as the principal provider and complete the remaining relevant fields. Select Next.
- If you are wanting to include both the procedural voucher and assistant voucher on the same invoice so that the principal provider is paid for both, first create the voucher with the procedural items. Upon selecting Save you will be prompted with this window
- Select OK.
- This will prompt you to find your Assistant from within the Address Book. If the Assistant is not in your Address Book you will need to add this record before invoicing.
- Check the IMC Invoice information, then click Next.
- In the next window you will be prompted to either store or transmit the claim.
Billing only an external assistant
If you have forgotten to include an assistant item on your ECLIPSE transmission for an assistant who is not at your practice, it is possible to create a claim for only this assistant and transmit this via ECLIPSE. There are a few steps involved in this process, which are listed below:
- Highlight the patient and navigate to Billing > IMC Invoice Wizard
- Make all selections on the Basic Claims Details page as normal, being sure to leave your surgeon as the Primary Provider
- Click Next to proceed to the Voucher window
- Click the purple doctor icon next to Servicing Provider and choose 'Assistant'
- Select the relevant assistant provider from the list that appears
- Add the main surgical item as normal using the blue plus sign
- Once this is added, click Save
- In the prompt that appears, click the Invoice As Assistant button and enter the surname of the Primary Provider.
Note: The Primary Provider will need to be created in the Address Book if they are not there already. - Once selected, the surgical item is changed to the appropriate assistant item automatically (51300 or 51303) and the surgeon's information (provider number) is entered in the notes along with the relevant items (e.g. Surg: 00000AB Items: 00001 00002)
- Save and complete the rest of the IMC claim as normal
Billing one of your providers as the assistant
If a provider at your practice has assisted another doctor on a procedure, please follow the steps listed below to claim for them as an assistant:
- Go to Billing > IMC Invoice Wizard.
- Under Principal Provider, select the doctor from your practice who assisted in the surgery. Complete the other relevant fields and select Next.
- In the next window, leave the servicing provider as your doctor. Add the procedural items to the claim and select Save.
- You will be prompted with the following window:
- Select Invoice as Assistant and you will be prompted to enter the surname of the surgeon. This will give you all records in your address book with this surname. Select the appropriate provider. This will take you back to your vouchers window. If you open the voucher you have just created, you will notice that Genie has changed the procedural items to the appropriate assistant item.
- Select Next and then choose to store the claim or transmit.
You can keep track of what has been billed and paid for your assistant items using the Assistants Report from File > Maintenance & Reports > Practice Analysis. This will only display 513XX assistant items. If you use your own custom item numbers you will need to either view the Item Report or use the QuickReport function.