SumTime® for Psychotherapists Version Five Demonstration User¹s Manual Contents: Introduction Getting Started Clients Activities Printing a Bill A Tour of the Main SumTime Screen The Activity Calendar The Menus Setting Up Your Own Database Entering Data and Printing Reports Standard Reports Accounts and Balances And There¹s More! How To Order SumTime Introduction Thank you for trying SumTime®. This Demonstration version does almost everything the full system does. Its chief limitations are a maximum of five client records and five activities per client per month. Also, the procedure and diagnosis code lists cannot be added to; in the full version of the software, it is easy to add any code you need. This brief manual will guide you in exploring the demonstration data base, and in setting up a small data base of your own. SumTime can be customized and expanded in an almost endless number of ways, to accommodate the unique aspects of your practice. The on-screen help provided with SumTime should answer almost any question you have as you use the demonstration. But of course, if you have questions that Help does not answer, please feel free to contact us by e-mail (sumtime@sumtime.com) or by phone (707-967-8581). We have enjoyed creating SumTime. We hope you will enjoy using it. When you have finished with this demo kit, please pass it on to a friend or co-worker who might find it interesting. Getting Started The next four pages tell you everything you need to know to get SumTime® started working for you. In the SumTime Demo folder, double-click on ³Demo database² to start SumTime with the demonstration data base. When asked, specify whether you want the demonstration to be for a single therapist or for a group practice. (You can change this setting later if you wish). Have fun. Don¹t worry about messing up the database. You can always re-install it from the installer. We strongly recommend that you make full use of the on screen Help system. You can access it three ways: € Click the HELP menu (at the top of the SumTime main screen) and choose CONTENTS to see an index of major topics. € Click the HELP menu and choose CONTEXT HELP. The cursor changes to a ?. Move the cursor to any icon, field, or menu item on the SumTime main screen and click to get an explanation of that item. € Most SumTime screens have a HELP button. Click it to get an explanation of that screen. The SumTime Help system contains almost the full User¹s Manual. By clicking on the <<*>> symbol following a phrase in the help text you can get more information on that phrase. For a detailed explanation of the Help system, click the HELP menu and choose HELP ON HELP. Clients On the left half of the main screen is an array of 12 icons which we call the ³12-Icon Grid.² Click the upper right icon (Client), select a client on the pop-up list, and click OPEN. This opens the Client Screen, containing information about the selected client. The MORE, NOTES, RATES, REPORT SELECTOR, and INSURANCE 1st, 2nd, and 3rd buttons lead to more information (which can be ignored for many clients). To return to the Client List, click the OK or CANCEL button. On the list, click DONE to return to the Main Screen. Throughout SumTime, use the OK button to close a screen and incorporate any changes, or the CANCEL button to close a screen and discard changes you don¹t want to keep. If you choose CANCEL, SumTime will ask you to confirm it. If you find this question annoying, you can turn it off by clicking Hide in the question box. Activities On the right half of the Main Screen is the calendar, which gives access to a client¹s sessions, payments, etc. (called activities). Above the calendar are one or two fields. For a group practice, the top field shows a therapist¹s name, or [All Therapists]. The next field (the only one shown for a solo practice) shows a client¹s name, or else [Expenses]. If the top field (if present) does not show [All Therapists], click on the Therapist field (above the calendar) and select All Therapists. (This field is not visible in a single-therapist data base.) Next, click on the Client field (above the calendar) and select Elizabeth Boop. If the year is not 1996, click on the YEAR and select 1996. Click on the MONTH and select August. The calendar should now be showing Elizabeth Boop¹s activities for August, 1996. On the calendar, the dates on which Elizabeth Boop had one or more activities (sessions) are highlighted. Click on any highlighted date and select an activity to open the Activity Screen. Change whatever you wish, then click OK to return to the Main Screen. Pick any date and select new. This brings up an Activity Screen for that date, filled in for an individual session (Elizabeth Boop¹s default type of activity). Click OK to exit the screen. That¹s all it takes to enter a one-hour individual session for Elizabeth Boop. Before clicking OK, you can change the Type of activity by clicking on the TYPE field (under Elizabeth¹s name), or change any other information you wish (e.g., enter a payment). Note that selecting an Activity Type fills in most of the information on the screen for you (which you are always free to change as necessary). The ANOTHER button on the Activity Screen closes this activity (like the OK button) and pops up the Client List. Choose a client and a new Activity Screen for that client (on the same date) opens. This allows you to enter sessions from your daily appointment book very quickly: if the clients¹ default Activity Types are set up, recording a session takes just two mouse clicks and no typing at all! Now go ahead and explore. You might try selecting Type GROUP on an Activity Screen. Note that SumTime fills in all the dates for a weekly group and sets the units to Months instead of Hours. If you charge groups by the Activity (session) or by the Hour, just click to change it. If Hours, type in the number of hours. (Later you can change SumTime¹s default billing for groups to Activities or Hours very easily.) The figures at the bottom of the Main Screen summarize the client¹s account for the displayed month. Click on the ACCOUNT field to see other accounts (the demonstration comes with just one account, which is all many therapists ever use, but you can add more if you wish), or to see how much the client owes on his/her copayments. Printing a Bill SumTime can generate many bills, statements, and reports. You will usually print a bill, statement, or report for several (or all) clients at once. Now, though, we will print a bill for just one client, as an example. Click on the PRINT icon (third row, right icon) and open BILL-INSURANCE. Now you should be on the Print Screen for the insurance bill. The From and To fields on this screen specify the activity dates to be included in the report. The fields are preset to the month showing in the calendar. Make sure they are set for August, 1996. The Client field should be already set to ³Elizabeth Boop.² If not, click on it and select her. Make sure that your printer is on. Then click the PRINT button to bring up the printer control screen. Click its OK (or PRINT) button and the bill should print showing the therapist¹s name & address, Elizabeth¹s name & address, the diagnoses (from the Client Screen) and the activities in the month. You can adjust SumTime¹s margin settings to match your printer on the Preferences - Other screen (on the FILE menu). and you can change the format of this bill, and of any other bill, statement, or report (see the Help topic ³Report Definitions²). When you print a bill, SumTime can create a Pending Bill record. (On the demo, Bill-HCFA 1500 is set up to do this.) You can use the pending bill record for two things. First, you can ask SumTime to remind you of overdue bills. (You can check the Pending Bill record for details of the bill.) Second, you can use the Pending Bill record to help you record the payment when it comes in, as explained below. When you receive a payment, you need to put a payment list activity on the client¹s calendar. To do this, you can click on the payment date and choose [New PayList]. This opens a payment list (PayList) screen where you can record the amount of the payment and also, if you wish, which activities are paid for, and how much for each. Entering all this information can be a bit tedious, but if you have told SumTime to create a pending bill, it becomes very simple. When the payment arrives, just open the pending bill screen and enter the date and amount of the payment. If you wish you can also enter amounts to be posted to each activity shown. Then click OK to change the pending bill into a payment list activity. Now you know how to do the four main functions: entering client information, entering sessions, printing bills and reports, and entering payments. The rest of this manual helps you explore a few more of SumTime¹s many capabilities. A Tour of the Main SumTime Screen After you select a database, SumTime will open the main SumTime screen. The screen has three elements: the 12-icon Grid, the calendar, and the Balance Box. Above the screen are the program¹s menus. We¹ll go over each section in brief here. The Help system will give you more information on any screen or topic. When you click on any icon in the 12-Icon Grid, a pop-up list will appear, from which you may make a selection. The More Buttons icon leads to a grid of less-used buttons. The demonstration database has items in each list, and many of the entries (such as reports) are also in your database. The pop-up list allows you to do many things. For now, you only need to know how to select an item and open it, create a new item, and leave the list. You can select an item (e.g., a client) from the list by clicking on the client¹s name or by typing part of the name in the Selection Field at the top of the list. You can open a screen showing information about the client by double-clicking on the client¹s name or by clicking the OPEN button. You can create a new, empty Client Screen by clicking the NEW button. And you leave the list by clicking DONE. Here is a brief description of each icon in the 12-Icon Grid: Click on the CLIENT icon at the top right of the 12-Icon Grid. Open ³Peter Rabbit.² (If Peter is not in the list of clients and this is a multi-therapist data base, make sure that the Therapist selection field, the top field over the calendar, is set to [All Therapists]. This field is not visible in a single therapist data base.) Peter¹s Client Screen and the associated More, Rates, Report Selector and Insurance screens (accessed by the so-named buttons on the Client Screen) contain information about Peter Rabbit, and his special rates, therapist, insurance, referrals, diagnoses, reports and bills needed, default (most common) type of activity, etc. The Client Screen includes a Notes button, as do many of SumTime¹s screens, where you may enter up to ten pages of notes and comments as needed. Notes can be protected by use of the No-Notes password (see Help topic ³Passwords²). Information about Peter¹s managed care contract, if any, is entered on his First Insurance screen. Use the SELECT button in the Managed Care box to select an existing contract or to enter a new one. When you enter a session (activity) for Peter, the number of units used in the session will be added to the total number used on this contract, as shown on the Insurance screen. The value of a unit can be one hour or part of an hour, as defined on Peter¹s More screen. If you enter a copayment amount or percent, it will be copied to each new session screen, where it will be used to compute Peter¹s current copayment balance, and to enter his payment (if he pays in full each session). What all this means in practice is that if you enter the Managed Care information just once, on Peter¹s First Insurance screen, SumTime will automatically take care of it from then on. Once you¹ve examined (and changed, if you wish) Peter¹s Client Screen, click OK or CANCEL to return to the client list. After you¹ve examined the demonstration database, you can go into your own database and enter your clients by clicking the Client icon and clicking NEW. Just below the Client icon is the INS. CO. icon. Before entering information about insurance on a Client Screen, you need to enter information about the insurance company. Click here to get a list of insurance companies, or to add a new one. The Insurance Company Screen holds information about the company and also information needed to file insurance claims by modem (³electronic media claims²) if the insurance company allows it. To the left of the Ins. Co. icon is the OTHERS icon. The Others list contains information about any person, organization or facility of interest: hospitals, people who refer clients to you, consulting physicians, etc. Under the Ins. Co. icon is the PRINT icon. This icon allows you to choose a report, bill, or statement to view or to print. See below for descriptions of each report. The Print list is a little different from the others, in that it does not allow you to define a new kind of report, just view or run them. (Reports are defined using the Define Report button, which is on the More Buttons screen.) In the center of the top row, the THERAPIST icon gives access to information about the therapist(s). For a solo (single therapist) practice, there is no list; the Therapist icon opens the Therapist Screen. For a group practice, the Therapist List shows each therapist in the group, as well as the group itself. Below the Help icon, the PEND. BILL icon accesses information about bills you have sent out. You can¹t create a new Pending Bill record here; that is done, if you wish, when you print (or electronically file) the bill. From the Pending Bill Screen you can review charges and payments for each session on the bill, and you can post payments to the sessions. To create a Pending Bill record, go to the Print Screen and click MORE OPTIONS. Set Pending Bill to Client or INSURANCE. Then print or file a bill. Below the Pend. Bill icon is the MEMO icon. Memos contain a Creation Date field and a Notify Date field. Every time you start SumTime, the system will, if you wish, notify you of all memos whose Notify Date has arrived, and of upcoming client birthdays, clients whose Managed Care contract is about to expire, overdue bills, and clients needing attention. All this and more is controlled from the File menu, under Preferences-Messages. Next to Memo is the MARK icon. This icon accesses a very powerful feature. Using it, you can locate and mark clients, months, or activities that meet specific criteria. For example, you can find all clients who owe you more than $1,000 (or any amount you define). You can find all clients who have made a payment (or not made one) in the past three months. You can find all hospital visits over a given period of time, and the clients you visited. You can find all clients with a PTSD diagnosis, or all sessions with a specific therapist, or all clients who pay a non-standard hourly rate‹and a lot more. After marking selected activities or clients, you can then look at the clients or activities; print reports restricted to these clients or activities (via the PRINT icon); export them to another data base; or use the UPDATE selection under the Utilities Menu to flag them for later consideration, delete them, or modify information in their records. MORE BUTTONS accesses a grid of six less often used buttons: Clicking the ACTIVITY TYPE button brings up a list of Activity Types. Activity Types may be changed, deleted, or (in the full system, not this demonstration) added. DEFINE REPORT lets you define new formats or edit them, change the margins, control which records are included, and set other characteristics of existing bills, statements, and reports. SumTime generates a wide range of pre-formatted reports designed to meet the needs of most therapy practices, so you may never need to use this button. DIAGNOSIS brings up a list of the 50 most common diagnoses, with their DSM-IV and ICD codes and descriptions. You can change or delete existing entries, and in the full system (not this demonstration) you can add to this list. Additional DSM-IV codes are provided with the full system. ACCOUNT brings up a list of accounts. SumTime allows you to categorize your income by account. (Many therapists use only one account.) Selecting any item from the Account List will open the Account Screen containing the name of the account. SumTime comes with one account (³Standard²). You can add more. EXPENSE TYPE lists categories of expenses that you want to track. SumTime provides a few for you and (in the full system) you can add more. FLAGS are symbols used to mark a client, activity, or other record. For example, you might use the Flag feature to identify clients with a large balance due, identify members of different therapy groups, identify inactive clients, etc. SumTime comes with several flags; you can add your own flags in the full system. The Activity Calendar On the main screen, the calendar is where you record activities (sessions, payments, etc.) for your clients. You can also use it to record your professional expenses. The Therapist Selector Field (above the calendar) is used in a group practice to select a therapist whose clients will be shown in the Client List. If you have a solo practice (one therapist), this field does not appear. Click the field and select the therapist, or select [All Therapists] to see all clients. The Client/Expenses Selector Field (above the calendar, just below the Therapist Selector Field in a group practice) is where you select a client for the calendar. Click the field to display a list of clients, plus an Expense entry. The entire month¹s records of whatever client you select from this pop-up list will be reflected in the calendar below. The client displayed in this field becomes the default selection in most other windows that contain a client field. When you choose EXPENSES from this list, you can use the calendar to record your professional expenses. You can then print reports showing your expenses by month, year, and/or account. Please note: SumTime does not contain an expense list for each therapist; there is only one expense list for the whole practice. To use the calendar, after you have chosen a client in the Client/Expenses field, you need to choose a month and year for the calendar. Click on the YEAR field and a pop-up list appears. Each year in which you have entered activities for this client has a # mark beside it. The same is true of the MONTHS list. When you have selected a year and a month, the calendar will indicate the days that have activities recorded by highlighting the dates. When you click on one of those dates, you get a pop-up list of the activities. All days have a selection for [New Activity] to enter new activities, and [New PayList] to enter payments. The easiest way to understand all this is to try it! Using the demonstration database, select Peter Rabbit, 1996, and August. Then click on an a highlighted date and select an activity from the pop-up list. This works the same way for expenses. To enter a rental expense, select [EXPENSES], the year, the month, and the date you paid the rent. Select [New Activity] and fill in the screen that appears with the type of expense (e.g. Rent); the cost, and the amount reimbursed, if any. For recurring expenses, you can enter a default cost on the Expense Type Screen. If the year you want is not on the list of years, click the YEAR and select [NEW]. At the bottom of the 12-Icon Grid are the SEE (eye icon) YEAR and SEE MONTH icons. These allow you to see all the activities for the chosen client for the month or year selected in the calendar. You can select an activity from these lists as well as from the calendar. The See icons show you the charges and payments on each of the month¹s activities, and they allow you to mark, copy, paste, and archive activities. At the bottom of the screen is the Balance Box which shows the prior balance, charges, payments, and current balance for the current client for the month and year chosen on the calendar. If you click on the Account field in the Balance Box, you are offered a pop-up list to choose the account for which you want a balance, or choose [COPAYMENT] to see the client¹s copayment balance (total copayment amounts less total client payments). Copayment amounts are blanked out for clients who do not have copayments. The Menus In the File Menu, use OPEN to change to another data base. Use NEW only to create a new, empty data base with no DSM or CPT codes, no reports, no nothing. (It is rarely used.) SAVE COPY backs up your database onto diskette or hard disk. Unlike other systems, SumTime automatically saves your information as you work, so you do not have to use Save Copy each time you exit SumTime. PRINT SETUP does the usual printer setup (it is seldom used). Under PREFERENCES, APPEARANCE allows you to select calendar colors. LABELS defines your own labels for several SumTime fields. MESSAGES sets the verbosity level (how much SumTime talks to you) and controls reminder messages. And OTHER controls passwords, whether the data base is for a solo or a group practice, margins, how lists display, and other useful choices. In the Utilities Menu, EXPORT and IMPORT transfer information between databases. PURGE removes old activities (usually at year end). REVIEW is especially useful for reviewing activity types, to make sure their rates are set correctly. UPDATE is used to make changes to a lot of records at once. The Help Menu accesses the on-line Help system as previously described. And the edit menu or the standard keyboard editing commands can be used to copy and paste any text between SumTime fields and with other applications. Setting Up Your Own Database Now that you¹ve explored the system, it¹s time to set up your own database. Choose OPEN on the SumTime File Menu and open ST database (in your SumTime Demo folder). The Preliminary Setup Screen will appear. Read the information on the screen and choose SINGLE or GROUP. This will launch a series of screens that hold information about you and your practice. Anything you fill in now can be changed later. There are two kinds of screens you will be prompted to fill in: Therapist and Activity Type. A title bar along the top will tell you which type of screen you are currently in. On the Therapist Screen, you should enter the information about yourself (the therapist) or about the group (if a group practice). This information can be printed at the top of your bills and statements and on the HCFA form. You must fill in at least the name now. You can go back later and change any information. On each Activity Type Screen, the most important information you need to enter is your standard rate for this type of activity. This information is entered in the Units & Rate box. Rates can be per hour, per month, or per activity. Click to select HOUR, MONTH, or ACTIVITY. (Ignore % PER YEAR for now.) To enter your rate, click either the RATE # button or the SPECIAL button in the Units & Rate box. If the activity is charged at your standard hourly rate (for example, type 90844-Individual), click the RATE # button. On the Rate Card enter your standard hourly rate in Rate Class 1 and select the RATE CLASS 1 check button. Then click OK to return to the Activity Type Screen. (Note: The rate in Rate Class 1 will apply to all Activity types in Rate Class 1.) For any other type of activity, click the SPECIAL button in the Units & Rate box and enter your rate for this type of activity. The Special rate will apply only to this one activity type. You have just defined a simple rate structure. The rate mechanism can accommodate much more complex structures, with different rates for some or all therapists in a group practice, different rates for different insurance companies, and special rates for individual clients. For a full explanation, see the Help topic ³Rates.² After entering the rate information and reviewing the Activity Type Screen, click OK to go on to the next activity type. Additional activity types are supplied with the full system. If you need activity types which are not included in the full system, you can add your own. On the SumTime File menu, PREFERENCES allows you to select a number of options, including these: PASSWORDS: SumTime contains two levels of optional password protection. The Master password allows access to everything in your database. The No-Notes password allows access to the database, but not to your client and session notes. VERBOSITY: You can control which messages, questions, and reminders SumTime will show you. For example, you can tell SumTime to remind you of clients with a particular flag, or not to remind you of client birthdays. Also, on most alert and question messages there is a Hide button. Use this to suppress the message or question. ADJUST MARGINS: If you should have printing problems, you can enter margin adjustments (for example, if your printer does not fill in the HCFA-1500 form correctly). Margin adjustments may be positive or negative. For more information, print the report called MARGIN TEST. Entering Data and Printing Reports Here is a step-by-step description of how to enter your clients and their activities, and to print your reports: To enter a client into the system: 1. Click on the Client icon on the Main Screen and, on the Client List, click NEW. A new Client Screen will appear. 2. Fill in the fields of information about the client. In general, SumTime presets fields to reasonable values, so you can leave many fields alone. When in doubt, leave the field as SumTime sets it. 3. Unless this client has a special hourly rate you do not need to use the RATES button. 4. Click the REPORT SELECTOR button and check the settings. If in doubt, click the ALL button to check all the report type boxes. 5. If you wish, click the MORE button and fill in the client¹s birth date and other information. If you want birthday reminders, you need to fill in the birth date. 6. If you will be submitting HCFA-1500 forms for this client, click on the MORE button and fill in the dates and other information needed, then click on the 1st INSURANCE button and fill in the insurance information. Note that before entering referrers, consultants, insurance companies, etc., you must fill in the information on Insurance Co. and/or Others screens. Feeling overwhelmed? Cheer up. If you¹re not following along on your computer, you might try entering a couple of clients now. It can be confusing the first time through, but soon you¹ll be breezing through it. And once it¹s done for a client, its done! 7. When finished, click OK. Now you¹re back on the client list, where you can enter another client or click DONE to return to the main screen. NOTE: To ease the chore of entering data, you can select DEFAULT on the client list and enter basic, stock information in the Default Client Screen. What you enter there will be copied automatically to each new Client Screen. Enter information which usually doesn¹t change from one listing to the next, such as your city and state, the account most frequently used, the report selector most frequently used, and so on. This can save you a lot of repetition when entering new clients into the data base. To enter an activity for a client: 1. Select the client by clicking the Client/EXPENSES field above the calendar on the Main Screen. 2. Select the year and month using the pop-up lists on the calendar. 3. On the calendar, click on the date of the activity and select [New Activity]. A new Activity Screen will appear. 4. On the Activity Screen, if the type is blank or wrong, click on the TYPE field and select the Activity Type. (It will be blank if you have not previously selected a Default Activity Type for the client.) 5. Enter payments, if there are any. 6. The other information should be already filled in by SumTime. Check the screen to see that it is correct. For an hourly or part-hour session, make sure the number of hours or parts is correct. (Enter fractional hours in decimal form; a half-hour is 0.5, etc.). 7. Click the OK button. To print a report or bill: 1. Enter the desired (start) year and month on the calendar. If the report or bill is to be for one client, select the client on the calendar also. 2. Click on the PRINT icon on the Main Screen and select the desired report. Click SELECT to open the Print screen. 3. Select the desired Client, or [ALL]. 4. Make sure the activity dates in the From and To fields are what you want. If not, fill in the correct values. 5. You can limit a report to one or more selected therapists and clients, to clients with or without a particular flag (e.g., to active clients), to marked activities, to activities with a charge, to activities that have not been billed yet, to a particular account, etc. You can click the MORE CONTENTS button to see more of the contents selection options. 6. Click the VIEW button to preview the report, or the PRINT button to print it. To Post a Payment from a Pending Bill: 1. Click the PEND. BILL button, select the bill that was paid, and click OPEN. 2. Enter the payment date. 3. Either enter the total amount of the payment, or, for each activity on the bill, enter the amount paid to that activity. 4. Click OK to post the payment as a payList activity on the client¹s calendar. And There¹s More! In fact, there¹s a lot more to SumTime than we could include in this manual. Since the demonstration incorporates the complete system, you can use your intuition and SumTime¹s on-screen Help to explore the program¹s extraordinary depths. You¹re limited only by the small number of clients, activities, and other records the demonstration system allows. If this manual and our on-screen Help fail to meet your needs, or to satisfy your curiosity, please contact us. We are eager to help. Our telephone numbers and addresses are: tech support/office: (707) 967-8581 fax: (707) 967-9291 web: http://www.sumtime.com e-mail: sumtime@sumtime.com order line: (888) 821-0771 (toll free) U. S. Mail: SumTime Software 995 Vintage Ave., Suite 102 St. Helena, CA 94574 How To Order SumTime SumTime comes with a 60-day money-back guarantee and 3 months support. You can extend support to a full year at low cost. The support includes access to help via e-mail, fax, or phone. Call us or check our web page at http://www.sumtime.com for current prices. You can pay by VISA, MasterCard, money order or cashier's check. (Other checks are subject to a ten-day delay.) Call the order line at 1-888-821-0771. P.S. We give 10% of all our profits to Human Rights and AIDS-related causes. SumTime is a registered trademark of Rudd, Inc. Copyright © 1994-1998 Rudd, Inc. All rights reserved.