Doc-tor.com's Mission

At Doc-tor.com we invent the future of medical practice management and Doc-tor.com is the embodiment of this future. We are at the forefront of medical practice management, with state-of-the-art medical practice and billing software. As ever, the face of medicine is changing, and an effective practice must change with it to maintain efficacy.  At Doc-tor.com, we are on the leading edge of this change and the emerging medical practice management technology.  We help today's physician to streamline their practice using today's available technology.  Web-based services at Doc-tor.com coalesce with your practice in order to simplify the entirety of the healthcare process and the patient care cycle. 

Patient scheduling, reports and analysis, prescription writing, patient history and billing management all become unified in one virtual office accessible anywhere a broadband connection is available. Spending less time on administrative minutiae allows healthcare professionals more time to spend in the real, visceral medical arena, where the beating heart of healthcare lay.  Don't allow revenue-robbing bureaucracy to continue holding back your practice.   

1. Access the system anywhere a broadband connection is available
2. Reliable, scalable virtual architecture accommodates any type of practice of any size
3. Data security, record keeping, and privacy considerations all HIPAA compliant
4. No local maintenance required.  Updates, data backup, and installation performed by Doc-tor team automatically offsite and without additional charge. 
5. Use existing PCs and web browsers to manage your virtual medical office. No additional equipment required. 

The Beginning

Doc-tor.com was incepted in 2000 when a team of healthcare and IT professionals, each with more than 25 years experience, joined to form the new face of information technology in the healthcare industries.  With empirical knowledge of what does and does not need fixing, this team set out to utilize technology in order to enhance the entire medical experience for everybody involved.  The role of the internet was becoming ever-more central; the team recognized this, and created an unembellished program that utilized it to expedite the healthcare worker's vocation. 

Overhead and The Profit Squeeze

Today's Physician Community faces intense pressure: tracking paperwork, managing increased regulations, maintaining cash flow, while enduring shrinking payer reimbursements and escalating costs. With our virtual office, you can eliminate most paperwork, manually updating protocols, managing regulation, and hard-copy accounting. Additionally, there are no updates and no maintenance fees to manage.  Doc-tor.com eliminates these needless expenses which cut deep into the profitability of a practice (and the patience of healthcare workers).  Office managers and physicians alike, take note: Streamlining these processes allows healthcare workers to focus more on what matters most: healthcare. 

A comprehensive medical practice management system from Doc-tor.com will bring you benefits and features you never thought possible. These are just a few of the many benefits of a virtual medical office system from Doc-tor.com:

•Improved cash flow with faster and more accurate billing:  Doc-tor.com increases the rate of fund transfer, and the overall efficiency of your practice’'s billing services by eliminating costly mistakes and oversights.  Our versatile and all-encompassing billing software virtually eliminates paperwork and human error. 

•Responsive customer-oriented support:  One of the most appealing aspects of our virtual office is that there is no equipment to buy or maintain.  Servers don't crash, and backups are performed automatically.  There is much less need for service and support, but if the need arises, maintenance and updates are performed automatically over the web, or via our two-tier support network.

•Virtual Access over the internet eliminates costly dedicated communication lines: The only information line you need in your office is your high-speed internet connection.  Through it, you are connected to the world-wide network of hospitals, physicians, doctors, providers, patients, labs, pharmacies and practices. 

•Improved workflow and more effective use of staff:  With so many automated process and the speed and ease of communication drastically raised, the entirety of the staff is liberated from time-consuming, burdensome busy work in order to more effectively use their skills. 

•Maintenance and service contracts eliminated; Costly software upgrades eliminated:   There are no servers.  There is no additional hardware.  The server will never malfunction or crash, and any changes and upgrades are integrated into your virtual office seamlessly, transparently, and effortlessly - all care of the Doc-tor.com team. 

•Improved collections now possible through timely notices and follow-up:  All of your billing is tracked automatically, with notices and follow-ups sent without your input for any delinquent accounts.   Tracking and collection are automated electronically saving space, time and energy for the employees of the practice. 

Eliminate many of the routine operating expenses in your practice

•Never buy your own server or deal with costly software and hardware maintenance contracts

•Never pay for or install periodic software updates or server upgrades

• Eliminate the need to back up your data each day.  It is done automatically for you by the Doc-tor.com team through our medical practice software.

• Remove the need to buy pre-printed fee slips and statement forms and the time of your staff to print and mail them.  All of these materials are provided by your medical management software, and the cost of them is built into your monthly payment. 

• Avoid your staff's need to prepare and mail recall, reminder and dunning letters.  All of these, too, are made available and managed through your medical practice software. 

The Administrative Simplification provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) were established to reduce the costs of healthcare administration, protect individual privacy, and secure health care information. The virtual medical practice management system from Doc-tor.com adheres to all of the standards. Our medical practice software has endured rigorous testing and meets strict internet security requirements. The HIPAA provisions, which create uniform standards for the handling and transmission of individually identifiable healthcare information, can be broken down into four separately defined standards:

Electronic Transactions and Code Sets Standards
This rule establishes a uniform format for sending and receiving electronically transmitted healthcare information, such as claims, eligibility information and payments. It mandates the adoption of a standardized set of codes that would be used to describe injuries and illnesses, identifying the cause of the problems, and defining the remedies administered.  This is one of the most obviously applicable rules to Doc-tor.com’s virtual medical office management.  It is one that our development team was keenly aware of, and one which they are exceedingly strict about adherence to it.

 
Privacy Standards
These regulations define a patient's control of their medical records, including restrictions on the access, uses, and disclosures of their personal and medical information. It also imposes stringent safeguards to protect paper-based medical records, and requires that a "Notice of Information Practices" be given to patients that outlines how the healthcare organization plans to use and safeguard all health information gathered.  Electronic security measures and safeguards are in place in the Doc-tor.com programming to insure that sensitive information remains private, whether paper-based or not. 

Security Standards
Both the security and privacy standards share a number of common themes, primarily in regards to the safety of patient information. For example, the rules require the implementation of physical and technological safeguards to protect the security of electronically stored health information.  The aforementioned technological safeguards are a hallmark of our programming, and you can rest assured the utmost attention has been given to issues of security.

Unique Identifiers 
The regulations specify that four identifiers be used in healthcare transactions to distinguish employers, health plans, providers, and patients. The employer identifier is slated to be the same number as the Employer Identification Number (EIN) issued by the Internal Revenue Service. The provider number would be a single code that would be used by healthcare providers with every company they do business with. The health plan identifier - while similar to provider numbers - are unique codes to identify health plans. This is meant to distinguish organizations that offer both health plans and healthcare provider services. Individual identifiers would be used to identify patients.

The Relationship Between Software and HIPAA
The most important thing to remember when establishing the relationship between practice management systems and the HIPAA regulations is that not all of HIPAA's rules apply to medical software. Practice management systems were originally designed to increase productivity and reduce the chances of error. HIPAA essentially regulates some of the software's core functionality, such as sending electronic transactions and restricting access to electronically stored patient information.  In this regard, Doc-tor.com is not satisfied with anything but the most secure privacy standards. However, using a practice management system does not mean that an organization will be in complete compliance with the legislation. After all, software cannot prevent a doctor from violating the privacy standards by talking about a patient without the patient's permission.

Most practice management systems by design perform two of the four tasks regulated by HIPAA: electronic transactions and security. Software that sends and receives electronic transactions should be pre-programmed to adhere to the ANSI X12 standards defined by HIPAA, as well as provide the uniform code sets for patient information that is electronically stored. To address the security issues, Doc-tor.com’s practice management software is able to restrict user access to records, and more importantly, track what activity took place with a patient's record.

While on the surface it seems as though there is very little our medical practice management software can do to address the privacy and unique identifiers standards, there are, in fact, features that help medical offices comply with these regulations. Since the privacy standards require that patients receive a letter advising them of how their individually identifiable information will be used, Doc-tor.com produces customized letters for each patient, and can track which patients have acknowledged receiving and signing these letters. And, just as the systems store and use the standardized code sets, we also maintain the employer, health plan, provider, and patient unique identifiers.

With one low monthly subscription fee, practices eliminate expensive hardware and software costs, yet enjoy the most current technology available. Medical practice software from Doc-tor.com means no more updates and no more maintenance. Our medical management software allows you to eliminate paper-based transactions, simplify confusing audit trails, circumvent go-betweens and grant yourself access to the medical information and patient management databases that have the potential to fast-track the entire patient care cycle.
Because of the enhanced services of Doc-tor.com, you can eliminate many of the routine operating costs such as:

• No longer have to buy your own server or deal with costly software and hardware maintenance contracts.  All technology, updates, and maintenance are taken care of via the internet with no cost or inconvenience to you.
• Never  pay for or install periodic software updates or server upgrades.  It is all performed automatically with the cost built into one low monthly subscription fee.
• Eliminate the need to back up your data each day.  No servers or hard drives are required, all of your practice's information is stored by IBM-managed servers.
• Avoid buying pre-printed fee slips and statement forms and the time of your staff to print and mail them.  All standard forms are part and parcel with the Doc-tor.com office management program. 
• Simplify insurance claims, by never having to transmit insurance forms to a myriad of carriers.  Patients' insurance is verified and sent electronically to carriers in an accelerated and simplified version.
• You never have to build or maintain standard tables such as Procedure, Diagnosis, Insurance, Referring Physician and others.
• Accounts receivable, too, are accelerated because our electronic routing circumvents sluggish, paper-based transactions. 

INCORPORATE THIS:
 
ASP COST CONSIDERATIONS

• Low capital investment Optimal security
• Easy to install and maintain
• 24/7 Consumer Care, quick and efficient implementation process
• Flexibility and Scalability Faster access to mission-critical applications
• Data and network redundancy protection 24/7 availability, reliability and accessibility of all applications
• Eliminate server management Access to powerful, load-balanced server farms
• Ability to access data over the Web
• Low cost of owner software, hardware, maintenance, backup, tech support, upgrades
• no long-term financial obligation

Onsite management and IT professionals monitor the system 24/7 for any problems or possible breeches of security and can quickly troubleshoot problems before they affect accessibility.

• You're concerned about HIPAA compliance.
• You want to employ the latest software solutions- and be certain that they will work together seamlessly.
• You want to focus on the business of healthcare - not the challenges of IT.
• You want to expand your services and capabilities but cannot support them.

How does the Hosting option affect my bottom line?
With DOC-TOR.COM, you do not have to concern yourself with the increasingly complex task of technology management. Instead, you can focus on issues that are critical to running your practice. Ultimately, the hosting option allows your practice to streamline processes, manage new opportunities, and concentrate on your core business issues to a degree not possible when you are faced with the burdensome task of technology management.