Updated FAQs are indicated by "***" preceding the question.

We thought it would be beneficial for our customers (and those who are just interested) to publish some of the FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) we hear from time to time and the questions we have received since the announcement of our new products and services in October, 2007. We will continue to update this post with more questions as they are asked, but feel free to call us anytime if you have anything you would like to discuss.

Company FAQs:

Are you an insurance company or do you sell insurance?

No, we are a software company. We are a wholly owned subsidiary of PPM Services. PPM Services also owns Preferred Physicians Medical Risk Retention Group (PPMRRG) which is an anesthesiologist only medical malpractice insurance company. All of the companies of PPM Services were formed by anesthesiologists to serve the anesthesia community. As much as our competitors would like to say that our company sells insurance, they are mistaken. It is like saying that GE Medical sells household appliances.

What do you do with your profits?

That is completely up to our Board of Directors and shareholders; however, we have an impressive record of investing our profits back into the company in the form of new hires and R&D to develop new products for the anesthesia community.

Why anesthesia-specific, why not create products for the entire healthcare market?

The primary reason for forming PPM Information Solutions was to create viable software products and services specific to the anesthesia market. If you look at the other software companies in our space, very few (and getting fewer) develop software specifically for the anesthesia market. For many of the larger software companies, anesthesia does not represent a significant amount of revenue to their bottom line compared to other specialties, as anesthesiologists represent only 4 to 4.5% of the total physician population.

Can I use PPM products for specialties other than anesthesia?

Yes, from what we understand, our customers are using our products to bill for over 20 specialties. Although we think that is great, our enhancements, product focus and support is for anesthesia. That’s not to say we would disregard any enhancement requests for other specialties, just that enhancements for the anesthesia community will take priority.

PPM: Connect FAQs:

What is PPM: Connect?

PPM: Connect is a platform of applications and services. With over 10 years of market experience in anesthesia, the Connect platform is a departure from the traditional thinking currently in our space. We listened to our customers, industry consultants, billing experts, anesthesiologists and of course our own Client Services group and delivered exactly what they wanted in a Revenue Cycle Management product.

What is Connect: RCP?

Connect: RCP is our newest anesthesia billing product that was announced in October, 2007 at the ASA and formally launched in January, 2008. It is a Software as a Service (SaaS) model product (see our blog posting on SaaS in healthcare). Because it is hosted in our data center, all the end user needs to operate the product is a desktop computer with an internet connection. The data never resides on the desktop, but is stored securely within our SAS70 level data center (which exceeds HIPAA standards). Our pricing with Connect: RCP, like most SaaS products, is transaction based. So like your electric bill, you only pay for what you use. The difference is we offer volume discounts as your practice grows or your needs increase. I wish the electric company would follow that same thinking.

How is Connect: RCP different from PPM Plus?

The products are both anesthesia specific and follow similar processes for billing. We have provided a rudimentary chart to give you an idea of the differences:

Why did you create a new product suite when you could have changed PPM Plus?

A lot of our customers were asking about hosted products while other customers had no interest at all. We suggested several huge initiatives that were rejected by many of the larger billing services and practices. Basically, they felt it would be a huge training issue if the User Interface was drastically changed and the billing process was modified or automated. Many felt that Plus was perfect for what they were currently doing and met their future goals as well. A majority wanted a few enhancements in various areas, but that was the extent. The general consensus was that since they have already made the investment in their infrastructure, hardware, software licenses, interfaces and backup solutions, they were in good shape. Also, many of them had IT folks on staff, so performing network maintenance as well as installing updates were not a problem.

Is Connect: RCP scalable?

So far, we haven’t been able to break it. But please let us know if you plan on doing 10 Million transactions a second.

What is the RECE patent-pending technology?

See our blog posting on RECE.

What is SaaS?

See our blog posting on SaaS.

Why are you so concerned with security?

After working with a number of practices throughout the years, we have become extremely concerned with how some of them manage their infrastructure (servers, desktops, backups, virus protection) and how few of them implement Disaster Recovery Plans and can holistically secure PHI.

Tell us about your data center. What does a data center look like?

You can check out our data center here.

What is SAS 70?

According to Wikipedia:

Statement on Auditing Standards No. 70: Service Organizations, commonly abbreviated as SAS 70, is an auditing statement issued by the Auditing Standards Board of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), officially titled “Reports on the Processing of Transactions by Service Organizations”. SAS 70 defines the professional standards used by a service auditor to assess the internal controls of a service organization and issue a service auditor’s report. Service organizations are typically entities that provide outsourcing services that impact the control environment of their customers. Examples of service organizations are insurance and medical claims processors, trust companies, hosted data centers, application service providers (ASPs), managed security providers, credit processing organizations and clearinghouses.

There are two types of service auditor reports. A Type I service auditor’s report includes the service auditor’s opinion on the fairness of the presentation of the service organization’s description of controls that had been placed in operation and the suitability of the design of the controls to achieve the specified control objectives. A Type II service auditor’s report includes the information contained in a Type I service auditor’s report and also includes the service auditor’s opinion on whether the specific controls were operating effectively during the period under review.

This is similar to the United Kingdom guidance provided by the Audit and Assurance Faculty of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. The technical release is titled AAF 01/06 which supersedes the earlier FRAG 21/94 guidance.

What is Connect: RCM?

Connect: RCM is our services offering on the Connect platform. The Connect: RCM platform provides supplemental services that cater to the needs of your practice by allowing our medical billing experts to do all of your billing, or only the parts that you do not want to manage. Connect: RCM gives you the flexibility of receiving your reports where and when you want to see your practice’s key performance indicators.

Why did you start offering billing services?

For several reasons. Keep in mind, our company mission is to serve the anesthesia community. As many of you are aware, the market is changing drastically. Practices are merging, splitting apart, being purchased by hospitals and even corporate entities.

Here are a few of the scenarios we wanted to address as a company:

• Many billing services will not work with a small practice or will charge them an exorbitant rate to do their billing. We decided to offer the same rate for smaller practices as to what is being offered to larger practices.
• Most billing services require a 3 year agreement. All of the Connect contracts have a 90 day out. No long term commitments are necessary. If you are not happy with the level of service we are providing, you can always leave. We feel that we need to earn your business every day and that you do not need to feel trapped in a contract. In fact, with the flexibility of Connect: RCP, you can convert to a Subscription Agreement and chose any billing service you would like to take over. We will train the billing service of your choosing on Connect: RCP and you continue to control your data. If you would just like your data, we can make it available to you in XML to take with you.
• Newly forming groups that intend on taking their billing in-house and are having a hard time getting their billing operations started. As mentioned above, we can get you started and hand off the applications when you are completely staffed, trained and ready to go.
• Practices that have key personnel leave who had all of the billing knowledge for the group. On Connect: RCP, we can fill in the gaps remotely until you get the appropriate people back in place.
• Practices that are uncomfortable with their billing data being sent offshore. We are US based and all of the work we do is performed in the US.
• Practices that are completely fed up with the leading anesthesia billing services. We have a history of referring practices to our customers that are billing services that meet the highest standards of billing. In fact, we are partnering with a few of our select billing services customers to offer the Connect: RCP products and our partner’s services.
• Billing services are now offering software. At the time of this post, we can easily name 10 Billing Services that represent a significant portion of the market that have extended their reach in the anesthesia space by 1) offering their proprietary billing software to practices and smaller billing services or 2) are re-licensing another company’s product and selling as their own. The market has changed.

Don’t you have billing services that are customers? Are you competing with your customers?

We have some of the best and brightest billing services in the country as customers, however, we do not see ourselves as competing. Our mission is to serve the anesthesia practices by offering the best solution possible. In many cases, we are able to do that through referral and partnering within our customer base. We do not target our customers’ customers. If a practice is wanting to leave one of our customers and wants us to do their billing, we may suggest other options to them within our customer base. If they still would like us to do their billing, we will not turn them away.

*** If you aren’t targeting my (billing service) customers, then why are my customers getting information about PPM: Connect?

First check out this FAQ (Are you an insurance company or do you sell insurance?) for some background on the corporate structure of the PPM companies. Second, many of the policy holders within the insurance company are also shareholders in the holding company. As owners of the company, they often receive updates on the company in addition to newsletters and other shareholder communications.

What product do you use for Connect: RCM?

We use the Connect: RCP product. The benefits to our customers have been amazing. By using our newest products, we are able to find more efficiencies and better ways to do things in both Connect: RCP and PPM Plus. We can now inform our customers on best practices based on our own experiences and enhance the our products to the benefit of our customers.

Do you offshore any of your services?

We are based in Mission, Kansas and all of our work is performed in the United States. We will not send any part of the billing process off-shore- which also includes our software development.

PPM Plus FAQs:

What is PPM Plus?

PPM Plus is our most recognized product in the anesthesia community. It is currently being used by more anesthesia practices and billing services than any other product on the market. The 1.0 version of Plus was released nearly 10 years ago. Since then, we have overhauled, updated, extended and enhanced the product significantly. We are currently on version 3.8.3.0 and continue to deliver product updates and enhancements a couple times each quarter.

What do the version numbers mean?

Using 3.8.3.0 as an example: "3." represents the major revisions of the product. ".8" represents the year of the release, ".3" represents the number of releases in that year and ".0" represents any hotfixes, service packs or payer updates we may have to do between releases.

Is PPM still selling the PPM Plus?

Absolutely! We continue to add new practice groups and billing services all of the time. We had several start with Plus this past quarter and a couple committed to start in the next couple of weeks.

Why is all of your marketing targeted to PPM: Connect and not PPM Plus?

The Plus product has been marketed since the inception of our company. We doubt there is an anesthesia practice or billing service that hasn’t heard of PPM Plus or spoken directly to one of our sales people. With a finite amount of marketing dollars, we decided the best use of our resources was to lead our marketing efforts with our new products and services, since there are still many practices and billing services that haven’t heard about Connect.

Why are the Connect products and services linked on the www.ppminfo.com site and PPM Plus isn’t mentioned on www.ppmconnect.com site?

We are still in the process of rolling out the new site and integrating all of our information. We currently have the Extranet on the ppminfo.com site and we have the Blog on the ppmconnect.com site. The sites are currently hosted by two separate companies. In the next couple of months, they will be all pulled together, with additional functionality.

Is PPM allocating all of their resources into their new web based product and not into Plus?

No. We currently have an entire team dedicated to PPM Plus. By dedicated, I mean we have Client Services, Product, Development and QA folks who live and breath the Plus product every day. Each day, we have a product meeting scheduled to discuss any issues, enhancements or client requests. In these meetings, we plan our releases and prioritize our development workload. Likewise, we have a mirrored team on the Connect: RCP side who live and breath Connect. The only shared resources across product suites are Managers and anesthesia subject matter experts.

What are your plans for PPM Plus?

Right now we have hundreds of enhancement requests from our customers and several internally driven projects being developed. When we review enhancement requests, while some are great ideas for everyone, other enhancement requests are relevant to only a very small segment of our customer base. Since PPM Plus is an established product, we have to be very careful about making drastic changes to the user interface and the process flow of the application. Our plans remain to continue to support and enhance PPM Plus for the benefit of our users.

Can I convert from PPM Plus to Connect: RCP?

We currently do not have an upgrade path for Plus customers to Connect. Since the two products are architecturally different, we want to be sure we are cleanly importing the data before we take on any migration projects. For those customers wanting to switch from Plus to Connect, we are offering them a new maintenance contract, which allows them to keep their PPM Server license and 1 concurrent desktop license without any cost as long as they are a Connect customer.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 1:31 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.