The problem of paying doctors in the US looks simple from the outside. It is not. It’s an expensive paperwork nightmare. While patients have to be quickly sorted between those who owe copays and those who don’t, doctors have to combine diagnostic codes (laid out in the ICD-9 coding system) with procedure codes (using the HCPCS system) just to get an idea of what has to be paid. Since the Level 1 HCPCS codes are, in fact, the AMA’s proprietary CPT codes, billing involves issues of copyright.

But getting a bill out the door is only the first step as insurance companies use every excuse they can to deny claims and downgrade what is paid. Errors are rarely in the doctor’s favor. It is a confusing mess of incompatible paper and electronic systems that bloats administrative costs and is a huge drain on the national medical budget and is a threat to the health of any medical practice. Ex-Medic software, publisher of Ex-Medic, is a small software company that removes a great deal of the pain and agony of the medical billing process. Based on top of 4D’s eponymous 4D database engine, Ex-Medic is a slickly done application that handles all aspects of medical billing, paper and electronic. The entire patient workflow outside the patient chart is covered. From setting appointments to handling co-pays to writing requests for payment to insurance companies and the patient, Ex-medic does it all. As information is entered, the program remembers every code, every price, every insurance company, every patient so data is only entered once. The number of billing clerks needed to handle an average practice shrinks dramatically because while billing can be complex, it’s highly repetitive. Ex-Medic runs on both Macintosh and Windows platforms and extensive support and handholding comes free with the program. This is a company that is actually selling a solution instead of just a packaged product claiming to be a solution.