New paper insurance claim form - designed to accept the new National Provider Id or NPI
This is the new CMS 1500 form that was first accepted by Medicare around the first of October 2006. This form replaces the old 'HCFA 1500 (12/90)' form. If you wish to begin using this form, you should first use up your stock of the old form and make sure you have plenty of the new forms on hand before doing anything to change the program. All versions of Stratford software later than 9.4.4133 support the new form. The changes will (at least it should) correctly format for any insurance claim form which is printed with red ink and has this notice in the lower right corner: "APPROVED OMB-0938-0999 FORM CMS-1500 (08/05)
You should be aware that changing the program to format a new form is not a thing which you should experiment with using your real patient data. You should use the trial version which is built into every Stratford program including yours. The trial version has always been included with every copy of Stratford software. When you create an insurance claim, various flags are set inside the program to prevent duplicate claims from being created. This means if your form is not formatted correctly for the paper claims that you are using, you cannot re-create those claims automatically. Of course, you can always demand the claims if you know the patient and the transaction dates. We advise you to use paper claims that you get from Stratford if you are not certain. We advise you to have a recent, verified backup before you make any changes like this. Even better, transmit your claims and forget the paper claims.
Here is how you setup your program to format for the new form.
From the main directory select #8 "File and system management"
Next select #7 "EDI Related Information programs"
Last select #3 "Insurance/EDI Form Control Settings"
Next put in the form type that you wish to change to the new form. Most people use the form type "564" for Medicare. You should then see a screen like this:
In the text box labeled "Use the new CMS 1500 form" type in Yes - or you can right-click and select 1=Yes.
That is all there is to it. Your forms will now be formatted differently. Be sure that you enter the NPI for the rendering provider, billing provider and the referring provider screens or you will not see it on the new forms.