Launching billOHIP.ca at FMF 2015

Last week we attended the Family Medicine Forum at the Toronto metro convention center where we re-introduced Mo-Billing under its new name billOHIP.ca. While the app has been restructured, billOHIP.ca maintains the same underlying concept of being a communication tool between doctors and billing agents but can now also be used for do-it-yourself billing. The billing software is free and can be used to collect, store, share and submit billing claims. Several new features have been added to further streamline the billing process, making it more efficient for doctors and administrators. The feedback we received at FMF from doctors was very positive. As we now start to introduce billOHIP.ca to doctors we are very excited to hear feedback following the first couple weeks of using the app!

Ending the silence: Version 2.0 of MO-BILLING

Dear Readers,

We sincerely apologize  for the silence over the past 2 months- we have been hard at work in creating Version 2.0 of Mo-Billing. We are excited to launch the new version today in iTunes and Google Play stores. The new version can also be accessed via the web at jsapp.mo-billing.ca for doctors and jsapp.mo-billing.ca/admin for billing agents. The new version is more intelligent and has increased content for both the doctor and the billing agent.

For those of you unfamiliar with the application it automates the medical billing process for doctors and their billing agents. Doctors are able to electronically collect, store and deliver their claims and billing agents are able to electronically receive and store the claims. Soon Mo-Billing will have direct submission capability to the Ministry of Health. Below we share some screen shots of the new application.

DOCTORS

The Dashboard

Organize all your claims, in one location. The bottom tabs on the dashboard allow you to easily switch between your saved, submitted, rejected and paid claims.

Creating a claim

Have the added flexibility of creating claims for more than one specialty. In your profile specify which templates you want available to you when creating a claim. Then when you create a new claim you can choose which template to use.

Simply take a picture of the patient sticker to record their information. Fill in all other required fields, such as hospital, diagnosis and admission date. All your hospitals and diagnosis codes are pre-loaded into the app.

Enter the admission date, first seen and last seen date so Mo-Billing is able to automatically generate your service codes for you. After entering in the information change pages using the bottom tabs.

For consults, you can choose the type of consult, and indicate any special visit and travel premiums. Certain consults have time limitations- Mo-Billing will let you know if you met the time requirement for certain consults. Also, there are limitations to the number of premiums you can use- Mo-Billing tracks this for you so you know if you've reached a limit.

After entering the details, simply click generate to automatically generate your service codes. You can add or delete codes to certain days or add a new day all together.

Simplify communication. If you have any comments regarding the claim you can leave a comment for your billing agent. Likewise they can leave one for you.

BILLING AGENTS

The Dashboard

Organize all your doctors' claims in one location. For each doctor, keep track of which claims are submitted to the Ministry of Health, paid or rejected.

Viewing Claims

Find what you are looking for quickly. Choose the doctor of interest and the status of the claims you are interested in.

To view a claim click edit and see all the details you would normally receive on paper- right on your screen! Simplify communication. If you have any comments regarding the claim you can leave a comment for the doctor. Likewise they can leave one for you. Update the status of the claim so you and the doctor can keep track of everything.

 That concludes the quick run through of the application. We are continuously working to improve and add content to Mo-Billing to better suit the needs of doctors and billing agents. We are currently working on implementing submission capability to the Ministry of Health. Billing agents will be able to simply review the the information on Mo-Billing and at a click of a button submit it to the Ministry of Health- data transfer to a third party billing software and the software all together will no longer be needed!

Please contact us at info@mo-billing.ca with any questions.

Legal services for startups at a reduced cost

One of the most expensive costs to startups are the legal services they require from the moment of their inception and through all stages of their development as a company. Legal services do not come cheap and cannot be avoided for long in the startup realm. While these high costs are the reality startups must face, startups should we aware that there is funding from Law Firms which specifically help with the costs of legal services.  We were fortunate to secure a spot within BLG's Growth Catalyst Program, which is further described in the copied article below from Techvibes. If you search diligently I am sure you can help secure some funding for your legal services!

Law Firm's Growth Program Boosts Tech Startups in Canada

Posted by Techvibes NewsDesk on May 23, 2014

Borden Ladner Gervais announced this week that it has selected startups Clear Pod and Figure of Eight, as the first companies to participate in the BLG Growth Catalyst Program.

The two companies are Ottawa-based and members of the Invest Ottawa GrindSpace XL accelerator.

Figure of Eight develops medical billing software permitting physicians to submit claims quickly, efficiently and securely. Clear Pod develops environmentally sustainable solutions for septic system waste water treatment that significantly improves the performance of septic systems.

The BLG Growth Catalyst Program is designed to offset legal fees by providing access to a multi-disciplinary team of tech-savvy lawyers, patent and trade-mark agents specializing in intellectual property protection, corporate, labour and employment law.

For companies who have attracted eligible government funding, BLG’s Growth Catalyst Program will match every dollar that those companies spend on legal services from BLG, up to $10,000 per company. This matching will be provided in the form of additional legal services.

“We are thrilled to offer these first stage Canadian companies access to affordable and high quality legal services without diluting the founders’ equity in the company,” said Curtis Behmann, partner, BLG Information Technology Group in Ottawa. “The BLG Growth Catalyst Program team are experienced legal professionals who provide both strategic and tactical advice to companies at a critical phase in their development.”

“As a startup company BLG has been generous in providing us with an opportunity to access legal services crucial in development of our company," said Suzan Bsat, co-founder of Figure of Eight.

Both companies recently graduated from the winter cohort for GrindSpaceXL. They were two of four GrindSpace companies that received government funding through the SPARC program via IRAP and Invest Ottawa. Pre-acceptance of the two companies into BLG’s Growth Catalyst Program assisted these companies in successfully obtaining the SPARC funding.

Original post: http://www.techvibes.com/blog/law-firms-growth-program-boosts-tech-startups-in-canada-2014-05-23

New Regulations on Crowdfunding

Last night Capital News reached out to us to get our opinion, as a startup, on the new regulations on crowdfunding. A short piece of our opinion was shared through Capital News, so I thought I would expand on our opinion found in their article New crowdfunding regulations bring opportunities for startups.

The new crowdfunding regulations are exciting for startups, primarily because it gives us greater access to funding and expands our investment opportunities. Crowdfunding provides startups with a whole new source of funding, allowing startups to tap into something new, something untouched- which may be exactly what some need to provide them with a quick kickstart. In addition to expanding access to funding, investment opportunities are expanded as well. Through a portal startups are able to connect with investors they may have never had the opportunity to approach, potentially because they simply didn't know of them. Crowdfunding will function to facilitate capital fundraising for startups in terms of access and effort; apparently the documents startups are required to prepare for the investors require a lot less effort than the traditional approach to investment funding.

The only precaution for startups: through a portal you may not have the opportunity to get to know the person investing into your company- and this may be worrisome is they all of a sudden own equity in your company.

Tale of Suzan Bsat and Mo-Billing

Being a co-founder of a business has challenged me in so many ways, continuously teaching me the ins and outs of how to get a start-up off the ground. Since September 2013, our date of incorporation, I have learned so much.

And while sometimes running a business can consume you, as your focus is always on achieving your next move, you must not forget to celebrate the little milestones along the way.

Carleton shares my story:

http://graduate.carleton.ca/2014/grad-student-suzan-bsat-launches-mo-billing/

http://carleton.ca/engineering-design/2014/suzan-bsat-grad-student-entrepreneur-launches-mo-billing/

The Art of Creating How-To Videos

Personally, I think that that being the founder of a start-up is one of the most interesting positions you can have. The reason being that you literally get to experience being every department in a company and while it may be a lot of work, you get exposure to so many new experiences.

Yesterday we worked on creating "How-To" videos for Mo-Billing at Ben Hoskyn Studio. Ben is a Ottawa-based cinematographer, director, and producer- and superb person to work with! Our main focus was recording the voice overs for the videos. After spending a couple hours working solely on the voice overs, I came to realize that I underestimated how much thought is needed in producing voice overs. I thought we would do one or two takes, but we did several. We did versions with different tones, word placement and sentence structure. You could spend a whole day trying to find the perfect way to describe something, the right words to use, the right order of the words and sentences. The total product is yet to be completed. Ben will take the many voice over recordings we did, play around with them and overlay them with different parts of the video- quiet an art!

Remember that your video visually explains a lot, so your voice over is intended to be supplemental to your video. In the end you want the voice over to be as succinct and straight forward as possible for your users.

Producing a "How-To" video to simply and quickly explain how to do something can be challenging but spending a couple hours finding the right words to use and the order to place them are the starting steps.

I've added some pictures of us hard at work!

Mo-Billing Featured by Invest Ottawa

When I started the GrindSpaceXL program at Invest Ottawa one of the first things we were told is: "What you get out of the program depends on what you put into the program". Makes sense.

Simply being a part of the GrindSpaceXL program teaches you how to take a start-up from an idea to product to sales, and everything in between- information that is essential to someone without a business background (such as myself). However, to truly get the most out of the program you need to put what you learn in the classroom to practice. I think of GrindSpaceXL as one of the many university classes I have taken in the past. You sit through class, learn a lot of information, then to make that information stick, you have to do your homework. In our case, our homework is taking the concepts we learn in class and figuring out a way to implement those concepts within our business.

Read about how doing things this way has really paid off for us in the article written by Invest Ottawa:

http://investottawa.ca/insiders-view-grindspacexl-driving-sales-mo-billing/

Invest Ottawa Open House

On Feb 13, 2014, we were at the Invest Ottawa Open House. Invest Ottawa (and it's accelerator program GrindSpace XL of which we are part) celebrated its two years of promoting business and job creation in the capital.

 Pil and Suzan with Ontario Labour Minister Yasir Naqvi visiting the open house.

To echo Suzan's entry below, I think last one month with GrindSpace XL has been that of literal acceleration for two green entrepreneurs with only technical backgrounds.

After a month, we are working with multiple billing agents who have signed on to use our app. We are also working with technologically inclined physicians who have confirmed our premise that the app will: 

• make it easy to collect billing data,
• transfer the data to the billing agent securely and immediately with a click of a button, 
• and eliminate worries of losing data, risking non-payment and exposing confidential information.

What a great idea, these accelerators. In Canada we are quite behind compared to Silicon Valley, but it's never too late! I thank the great insight the City of Ottawa and the Province of Ontario had 2 years ago.

Our GrindSpaceXL Experience: Progess Report

As a start-up company, co-founded by founders with no business background, GrindSpaceXL has been an invaluable program so far. GrindSpaceXL is described as a business accelerator and it has been nothing less than that for Figure of Eight Inc.

We have been in GrindSpaceXL since Jan. 13th 2014, exactly 1 month and 2 days as of today.  Our progress over this short time can be summarized as follows:

Week 1- Changed our business model entirely. After our first class in GrindSpaceXL, we were asking ourselves questions and exploring new avenues we may have never come across without GrindSpaceXL.

Week 2- Worked with the market research team at Invest Ottawa and conducted our own market research by reaching out to experts in the field to validate our business model.

Week 3- Called potential clients to set up meetings. 4 potential clients called- 4 meetings secured. All thanks to the Buyers Buying Process taught by Susan Englehutt at Invest Ottawa. Reached out to 3 media outlets- 3 media interviews secured.

Week 4- Meet with 4 potential clients- 4 new clients secured. Again, thanks to the Susan Englehutt's expertise. Media interviews in progress- more info to come once media is released!

A lot can happen in small time frame when you are guided by experts in the field.

Figure of Eight accepted into GrindSpaceXL

We are proud to announce that Figure of Eight Inc. was accepted as one of select groups of startups that applied for GrindSpace XL 2014 winter cohort, hosted by Invest Ottawa.

The program involves intensive training and mentoring to further enhance our business model. Furthermore, we are provided with various resources and work space within Invest Ottawa, located in the heart of Little Italy.

We, at Figure of Eight Inc., are stoked with this nod of approval at our vision and product from the industry leaders. Kudos to Suzan for her hard work at this competition!

The media release:

Ottawa, ON – January 14, 2014 – Eight, high-potential startups have been selected to join Invest Ottawa’s GrindSpaceXL (www.grindspacexl.com) accelerator program.

The program offers early-stage ventures the opportunity to work in a group environment while meeting deliverables laid out in a personalized development plan based on a needs assessment. Content focuses on four fundamental areas: market validation and go-to-market strategy; marketing communications and sales effectiveness; essential skills for success and sustainability; and financing and exit. All designed to get startups customer-focused and investor-ready.

The eight companies were selected from over 40 companies that applied for the Winter 2014 program. “We are seeing more later-stage companies applying,” said Kevin Carroll, Managing Director of Innovation at Invest Ottawa. “I was impressed with the calibre of companies that were shortlisted to pitch. The fact that we are receiving applications from across Canada as well as from the U.S., India, Ukraine and Ireland is an indication that the GrindspaceXL program is gaining traction within the start-up community.”

In all there have been four cohorts since program inception. Two Beta cohorts were run with 12 companies, and the first call for application cohort ran in the Fall of 2013. Nine companies were invited to participate from the 30 applicants.

The following companies were selected to participate in the Winter cohort:

BankMine (http://www.bankmine.com) – BankMine’s product is a financial evaluation software solution. The product is specifically designed to simplify the sales process for financial advisors, while creating a clear, transparent financial plan for the consumer.
Clear Pod Inc. (http://www.clearpodwater.com) – ClearPod develops environmentally sustainable solutions for septic system waste water treatment that significantly improves the performance of your system.
Fast2eat (http://www.fast2eat.com) – Fast2eat is online take-out ordering for food courts. Order online and skip the line, it’s that simple.
Figure of Eight Inc. (http://www.mo-billing.ca) – Figure of Eight Inc. focuses on developing solutions to facilitate the medical billing process, primarily for physicians participating in out-of-clinic practices.
PrepYourData (http://www.prepyourdata.com) – PrepYourData will enable businesses to clean up inconsistencies and errors in their data easily, so they can get on with their analysis quickly, without needing IT help or advanced Excel skills.
SimpleBI Inc. (http://www.simplebi.com) – SimpleBI offers a “Cloud” solution for small and medium-sized businesses. SimpleBI was built to address the fundamental needs of a client, by quickly and easily getting them on-board the system and up and running in a matter of hours – and by partnering with IBM they are able to offer the industry leading Cognos toolset, which allows users to begin reporting almost instantly.
Travelabulous Inc. (https://twitter.com/travelabulous) – Travelabulous provides an online and mobile personal travel concierge – to make sure you start enjoying your travel experience even before you begin to pack.
Zamani Wireless Solutions Inc. (http://www.zamaniwireless.com) – Zamani Wireless Solutions (ZWS) develops a disruptive intelligent wireless sensor technology platform with many high value applications such as e-health, indoor location tracking and personnel detection security. The first application of this technology is for an autonomous and non-intrusive fall detection product targeting Personal Emergency Response System (PERS) for seniors who are living alone in their homes or at seniors’ homes.
The Winter cohort began today and will run for four months. For more information on the program visit: www.GrindSpaceXL.com.

The media release can be found at the following link: http://investottawa.ca/invest-ottawa-announces-winter-cohort-for-grindspacexl-program/

We are on Twitter

We are now on Twitter, you can follow us on @MoBillingFo8!

Business cards, T-shirts

After comparing a few services, we decided to go for Vistaprint.ca to order our business cards and t-shirts, especially in preparation for the upcoming FMF.

Overall it makes a decent product for a decent price. (I have ordered their business cards and stamps in the past for my medical prof. corp.) However, I have to say they really need to work on their website. For instance, when one changes the text on the business card, it will not update it right away on the "on-line proof" stage. How can you proof it if you can't see the updated text? However, the updated text will eventually make itself home in the business card on next stage after you proof the "un-updated" text.

Or what about the fact that after spending 30 minutes on a t-shirt design, you can only order it in one size. You cannot order 2 in medium size and 2 in large size. Or let's say now you want to use the same design but change the t-shirt for "women's t-shirt". Not only does it cost more than a "men's t-shirt" you have to start the whole designing process again! Of course, you can order as many women's shirts as long as they are all the same size! If you want a different size, be prepared to repeat the whole designing process.

Anyhow, it still is more convenient than having to drive to a shop and go back and forth over a few days to design a business card or a shirt. I would give 3 stars out of 5, given all the problems with the web user interface.

Here's some teasers, but for the real shirts (and the real models!) meet us at the FMF!

Men's

Women's

Figure of Eight Inc.

We are incorporated as of Sep 5!

Just in case you're confused, Figure of Eight Inc. is our official company name. Mo-Billing is the app name.

Upcoming Event

Nov 7-9: Family Medicine Forum 2013

November 7th-9th we will be attending the Family Medicine Forum in Vancouver. We will have a table set up to showcase most likely our finished product, if not we will be showcasing our latest version closest to the finished product. We will post pictures and provide an update on how the conference went when we return.

Figure of Eight Inc.

We have started incorporation process. Ron Mckenna from Cognition LLP is helping out with the process. Our company will be called Figure of Eight, after one of the most secure and practical knots out there and used by rock climbers day in, day out.

We are in the process of hiring an accountant. A graphic designer is in negotiation to create a beautiful logo.

Things are moving!