The OCF-18 is an essential form for both healthcare providers and insurance companies. This form improves the accountability of all parties, streamlines the process of delivering healthcare services to applicants, and enhances communication between insurers and healthcare professionals.
The claim form is designed to facilitate a clear understanding of the interactions between an injured motorist, a healthcare professional and an insurer through the use of common terms and language. This form uses the national coding standards – the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Tenth Revision, Canada (ICD-10- CA) – to identify injuries as well as the Canadian Classification of Health Interventions (CCI) to classify healthcare services and procedures.
On January 1, 2011, it was mandated that OCFs dealing with the financial aspects of the MVA claim must be submitted through the Health Claims for Auto Insurance (HCAI) online system for consideration – which rendered faxing, couriering and mailing OCF forms obsolete. HCAI has modernized the way OCF documents are submitted, processed and adjudicated. Universal Office is integrated with HCAI to improve user experience and efficiency by streamlining and automating the OCF electronic submission right from your practice management system.
Your File Management Hurdles Are Our Hurdles Too
OCF form completion, submission and tracking are one of the most common topics we receive inquires about. Over the years, working with our clients has allowed us to evaluate and find solutions to challenges that many practitioners are faced with. We understand, value, listen, and subsequently implement your suggestions into Universal Office to continue to meet and exceed your expectations from your practice management system.
Universal Office simplifies and expedites the OCF-18 completion and submission process. The system prevents submissions of OCF-18s that are incomplete, which helps maintain facility integrity of proper document submissions to reduce insurance adjuster denials or facility resubmission requests due to data entry errors. Full integration with HCAI has allowed users to submit and receive responses directly in Universal Office, never having to log into the HCAI website or find creative ways to track the status of respective plans, incurred treatments, progress and reassessments.
Here are three ways Universal Office has simplified the OCF-18 submission process:
1. Pre-Population: Patient Demographics and Insurer Information
When you create a patient file in Universal Office, you input a client’s complete personal information – including full name, date of birth, contact information, address, occupation and emergency contacts. After adding a new patient file, this information is used to populate claim forms, invoices, letters, assessment reports, and other documents throughout the system. This information can also be updated when changes happen in patient cases.
When creating patient file, Universal Office allows to add MVA and EHC (when applicable) insurer claim information. Users also input, access and update information related to the insurance company, adjuster (name and contact details), policy and claim numbers, and date of loss.
Integration with HCAI means no redundant data entry for patient demographics, injuries and other information as discussed above. Pre-population of this information is one of the great ways Universal Office saves you time and resources. In addition, the convenience and organization of working on a centralized practice management platform is paramount.
2. Easy Coding: Injury and Diagnosis Codes
International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Tenth Revision, Canada (ICD-10- CA) is the national injury coding system. These codes identify the injuries sustained during the motor vehicle accident, and they are available to Universal Office users in the built-in library. Applying the appropriate injury code to an OCF-18 is critical, and it may mean the difference between an approval or denial.
Universal Office simplifies the process of adding injury codes to a client’s file. Users are able to add ICD codes by typing a valid code or filtering by description keywords.
3. Preset Templates
Universal Office allows users to create treatment plan presets to simplify and expedite claim form processing. Presets are set up with generic information used as a guideline to create OCF-18 claim forms. Once an OCF-18 is created from a pretest template, it can be revised at any time prior to submission via HCAI.
A highly regarded feature that Universal Office provides users is the ability to create OCF-18 documents not only from presets, but also from past treatment plans in the patient’s file. This helps health professionals speed up the process of OCF-18 completion. Once a new OCF-18 is created from a previous treatment plan, the provider may update Parts 1 through 12 to reflect the current condition and progress.
A significant time-saving aspect of Universal Office presets is that the OCF-18 can be created per health practitioner, such as a Chiro, Physio, Psych and other disciplines.
To learn everything there is to know about OCF-18s in Universal Office, click here.
