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NOTICE TO ALL SMS MedSeries4 (MS4) USERS

SMS announced its "APC Solution" during the Vision 2000 Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah.  

The Federal mandate for a prospective payment system (PPS) was included in the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1986.  The final version of the mandate includes provisions for implementation of an Ambulatory Payment Classification system, otherwise known as "APC's".  The implementation date for APC compliance is July 1, 2000.

The announced MedSeries4 "APC Releases" covered four MS4 application libraries:

• Patient Accounting

• MIRA (medical records)

• Reimbursement Management

• General Purpose

Database changes, screen modifications, new screens, and new procedures were included in this upgrade announcement to meet the Federal APC mandate.

The expected release date for all four applications is June 1, 2000.  

Despite the fact that the final APC rules and regulations were published only days before the APC announcement at Vision 2000, SMS did a respectable job of outlining their release strategy.  Notwithstanding, it is important to note several issues associated with the SMS APC solution:

• The SMS MedSeries4 "APC solution" requires all four applications indicated above to be installed in order for their release strategy to work as designed.  No alternative solutions were offered for licensees not currently using these applications.

• All four required applications must be at the then current release levels to apply the APC releases.

• There will be no new APC reporting functionality in the June 1 releases.  A separate "report release" will not be available until at least September, 2000.

  • SMS announced a LICENSE FEE for the "report release", indicating that the mandate upgrade clause of its license agreement did not require the delivery of reporting capabilities to support government mandates.  A proposed license fee of $10-12000 was suggested, but it was not clear if this figure was a total fee of a per application fee.

  • In addition to a license fee, SMS plans to provide code table update for an annual fee of approximately $1000.

• SMS also indicated that it will discontinue support of some coding system interfaces as part of their APC release strategy.

• Many questions from the audience were deferred, without answer, to a later announcement.

• And finally, you have only 30 days to implement and test the proposed SMS APC Solution provided that the announced releases are shipped and delivered by June 1, 2000.

WMC advises all SMS MS4 clients to continue monitoring the course of development, and progress for the MedSeries4 APC release strategy.

For additional assistance you may Contact an ADVANCE! Sales Representative now to find out more about APC conversion support for SMS MedSeries4 applications.

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