Welcome to our new, Synapse Connect bulletin. We know how busy you are so we’re keeping it short, slick and synaptic!

We have four exciting pieces of news to share with you including:

Happy reading…

In this issue

Sessional Rooms | ‘Appenings | Synapse Global News | Performance

Read on for these articles and more…

Sessional rooms EOI

We have some spare space in both Sydney and Melbourne, and are thinking of offering it to you as specialist consulting rooms, on a sessional basis. Because we have all the necessary infrastructure already – billing, app, transcription, appointmaid, IFC, merchant facility, staff and so on – it just makes sense. But we would like to gauge your interest before we go further.

In Sydney, the space is in the best part of Bondi Junction (the part where you can park on the street!) and a 2 minute walk from Westfield and the train/bus interchange. Surrounded by medical practices, close to all major hospitals and there’s great cafes close by.

Melbourne is the same, right on Victoria Parade across the road from St Vincent’s Hospital in the heart of the East Melbourne medical precinct.

And for those of you who haven’t visited a Synapse office, we are stylish! Your patients will love visiting you in Synapse style.

If you’re interested or know someone who might be interested please click here to answer a few quick questions.

‘Appenings

Version 2.3.0 of Synapps is now available on the app store and google play. If you haven’t already, you can download it here:

It may appear that nothing has changed, but it has.

First, you’ll notice a video that we want you to watch, even if you are a long-term app user. It will give you a taste of the other seven ‘how to’ in-app videos (which are short, very short) that you can watch at your leisure. We hope you find them useful and fun to watch, we certainly had fun making them for you.

In addition to shooting videos, we have been working tirelessly on the rules engine, adding new rules that are profoundly confusing or nonexistent in the MBS, are nowhere in The Health Insurance Act or Regulations, but that we know because we have been doing this for decades. Did you know that item 55054 is probably one of the most confusing and complex items to bill? Many of our clients bill it often but the order of legislative change affecting that particular item has meant that the MBS suggests it can be billed with certain other commonly billed items, but it actually cannot. We know this because we are proud medical billing geeks led by a CEO mad enough to be doing a PhD on the topic of Medicare claiming and compliance. We are embarrassed to admit that Margaret just loves complicated item numbers like 55054, and the good news is that her medical billing geek brain is being downloaded into the app for your benefit.

Feedback is always welcome so please share your thoughts and ideas on ways we can improve the app. We may even name an app feature in your honour!

The new Dubai office launches at Arab Health 2017

Synapse was proud to exhibit at the Arab Health conference from 30th January until 2nd February 2017 at the Dubai World Trade Centre. The event is the largest healthcare and medical congress in the Middle East with 4,400 exhibitors, 8 concurrent medical conferences and approximately 80,000 delegates over the four days.

We used the event to announce our move into the region and raise visibility of our bespoke IT solutions, knowledge and significant resources. We are delighted to report that there is certainly a want for Australian know how in the region and look forward to representing our Australian values with our new affiliate partners in the UAE and beyond.

During and following the event Synapse entered four contracts with large and respected entities within the region, one being an exclusive partnership with Fayez Al Harbi of Selat for Business Solutions to offer our clinical coding service in KSA (which has adopted the Australian modification of ICD-10AM). We even hit the headlines in the Saudi newspapers and The Arab Hospital magazine! (circulation 65,000.)

We look forward to keeping you abreast of our developments as the Dubai office continues to spread the Aussie word!

Performance

There’s lots going on at Synapse at the moment as we continue to grow organically and into new areas. However, our clients remain our core and most important asset, therefore we wanted to provide some updates in relation to performance and operations so far in 2017;

• Transcription – Of the last 850 hours of audio we have received, we’ve recorded 98.9% accuracy and 99% of files returned within 24 hours.
• Coding – We’ve recruited heavily to increase our coding capability with ICD 10 (Australian and US modifications), because the coding service has been in high demand.
• Billing – During January and February 99% of our billing tasks were completed and submitted within 24 hours of receipt.
• Arrears – We have achieved a 50% reduction in overall arrears by substantially increasing the size of the arrears team and in addition, we have a new process to attend to rejections and resubmissions within 24 hours.
• We are looking to improve our current 97% acceptance/payment rate for all claims we submit.
• The Appointmaid team has received ratings of 5 stars consistently, from clients old and new.

For us at Synapse, our existing client base remains our greatest priority and what we value most. Our growth and recruitment is focused on ways of enhancing our commitment to our clients which will allow us to invest more time in our systems and people, and ultimately improve Synapse Medical Services for you!

As promised short, slick and synaptic!

All the best,
Margaret and the Synapse team.