How everything worksHelp & how-to
The app stays short on words on purpose — the full explanations live here. Quick answers are on the FAQ.
Getting started
Registration asks only for the essentials: your name, email, password, province, specialty,
and your 6-digit OHIP billing number (it also enforces the one-free-trial-per-provider rule).
Everything else is filled in afterwards from the Complete your profile card
on your account — profile photo, gender, CPSO number, and phone.
- On first launch the app silently downloads the Ministry fee schedule so code search and
fee estimates work. If you were offline, any screen that needs it shows a
Download now button.
- Add your hospitals and clinics under Settings → Facilities (the master number is required
on hospital claims) and the surgeons you work with under Settings → Surgeons.
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Scanning stickers & drafts
Each OR case or consultation starts as a draft. Scan the patient sticker and the app reads the
health number, version code, and date of birth for the claim — you review and can edit every
value. One sticker per case; tapping a captured sticker later shows it full size for review.
- Everything a sticker produces stays on your phone, encrypted. Sticker images never enter
account sync or claim files.
- Drafts autosave; a day's cases become one claim batch when you generate the file.
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Billing codes & the fee schedule
Fees come from the Ministry's own Fee Schedule Master, downloaded into the app — thousands of
codes with their current dollar values. Procedure names come from the Schedule of Benefits, so
a search like "knee" finds the right R-code even if you only remember the operation.
- Favourites and recents keep your common codes on top; codes you never bill
can be hidden per specialty (and restored anytime).
- Custom codes can be added, and consultation codes can carry your own
clinic fee override — your fee is used on generated claims instead of the
schedule value.
- Re-download the schedule anytime from Settings; fees update when the Ministry revises them.
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Roles, units & premiums
Every OR case has a role — Assistant, Primary surgeon, or
Second surgeon — and the claim is built to match:
- Assisting bills one item with a "B" suffix: the major procedure's basic
units plus time units, at your assistant unit fee. After-hours premiums (E400B/E401B) are
added as separate items.
- Surgeon roles bill each procedure with an "A" suffix: the major procedure
at the full schedule fee and additional procedures at 85%, with the surgical after-hours
premiums (E409A/E410A) where they apply.
- After-hours premiums are only payable for non-elective cases, so a
qualifying start time asks you to confirm the case wasn't elective before any premium is
added. Time of day alone is never enough.
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WSIB claims & forms
Work-injury care is billed two different ways, and the app covers both:
- Insured services (assists, surgery, consults) travel through the same
OHIP claim file — the WSIB — workplace injury switch on a case simply marks that
claim's payment program as WCB instead of HCP. Same fees, same submission, paid through the
Ministry on WSIB's behalf, and it reconciles off the same Remittance Advice. WSIB and OHIP
claims can mix in one batch.
- WSIB forms and reports (Form 8, Form 26, the Functional Abilities Form,
narrative reports) are paid by WSIB directly, outside OHIP — bill those with an
invoice instead. Enter WSIB's current rate for the form; rates are
revised by WSIB, so the app never guesses them for you.
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Invoices
The Invoices section on the Files tab bills work that is paid outside the
OHIP claim stream: WSIB forms, and private or third-party work (insurers, lawyers, uninsured
services).
- Your letterhead (name, address, phone, email, optional HST number) is
asked once and printed on every invoice; your OHIP billing number joins automatically.
- Each invoice tracks Draft → Sent → Paid; sharing the PDF marks it Sent,
and the section header shows your outstanding total until everything is paid.
- The PDF is regenerated from the invoice record whenever you share it — there's no file to
lose, and invoice records ride your encrypted backups across devices.
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Generating claim files
The Files tab turns a service day's cases into a Ministry-format EDT claim batch. Before the
file is produced, every claim is checked — health-number check digit, missing version codes or
diagnostic codes, inpatient admission dates, referring physician on consultations, possible
duplicates — and each finding is shown for review. A separate confidential
case-log PDF is available for your own records; it is never part of the
Ministry file.
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MC EDT & return files
Claim files are uploaded to the Ministry through the MC EDT portal built into the
app — you sign in with your own GO Secure credentials, which are never stored by
clearcodeMD. Hands-free mode can navigate the portal, attach the staged file, and collect
your downloads for you.
- The Ministry answers with return files, and the app understands all three: the
Batch Edit (file received), the Error Report (claims
rejected before adjudication — fix and resubmit from the app), and the
Remittance Advice (what was actually paid).
- Importing a return file updates every matching claim's status automatically — nothing is
retyped.
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Claims tracking & reports
Every generated claim lands in the Claims tab with a live status — queued, submitted,
acknowledged, rejected, or paid — including what was billed versus what the Ministry paid, and
the explanatory codes when they differ. Reports adds monthly totals, an aging view of unpaid
claims, a watchlist of stale ones, and CSV export for your accountant. Unbilled cases
approaching OHIP's six-month claim deadline are flagged on Home.
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Backups
Patient data lives only on your phone, so backups matter. Both apps keep them in the
Files tab → Backups:
- Manual: create an encrypted backup archive anytime and store it wherever
you like. It's sealed with a passphrase only you know — without it, nobody (including us)
can open it.
- Automatic: choose a folder and passphrase once; the app then keeps the
newest five backups there on its own. On Android this runs daily even when the app is
closed; on iPhone it runs in the background windows iOS grants and catches up on every
open.
- Cross-platform: an Android backup restores on iPhone and vice-versa —
cases, claims, files, settings, and invoices all carry over. Restores are additive: they
never overwrite newer work already on the phone.
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Delegates
A delegate is a staff member (an assistant or biller) with their own sign-in that can only
reach the parts of your account you grant. Patient data never leaves your phone, so delegates
work with the same de-identified claim and earnings data the website shows you.
- Inviting: Account → Security → Delegates. Choose per-section permissions —
profile, claims, preferences, reports, each none/read/write — and an access window (specific
dates, or until revoked). Up to three delegates per account; each invitation link works once
and expires in 7 days.
- Their sign-in: the invitation email shows them exactly what you granted;
they pick their own password. A delegate account belongs to exactly one physician.
- Pause / remove: from either app's Account tab or the website. Pausing is a
reversible off-switch that ends their open sessions immediately; removing ends access
permanently (re-adding needs a fresh invitation).
- Delegates never see your membership, your security settings, or anything you didn't
grant — and the server enforces this on every request, not just in the interface.
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Referral codes
Every account has a shareable referral code, shown on the Membership tab of
your account. When a colleague enters your code at sign-up:
- They register normally (the code changes nothing about their trial), and
- You earn one free month the first time they become a paying subscriber —
30 days added to your current period, once per referred colleague. Your Membership tab
counts invited colleagues and months earned.
Codes avoid look-alike characters (no 0/O or 1/I/L), and self-referral doesn't count.
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Security & two-factor
- App lock: Face ID / fingerprint / passcode protects the app, and patient
data is encrypted at rest on the phone.
- Two-factor sign-in: enrol Google Authenticator (or any TOTP app) from
Account → Security. Signing in on the website can also just ask your phone —
"Are you trying to log in? Yes / No" — with the 6-digit code as the fallback.
- Remember this device skips the code on a browser you trust for 60 days of
use; a password reset revokes it.
- Sign out of all devices (Account → Security) ends every session
everywhere — phones included, which sign out the moment they next reach the server.
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Membership & trial
Every new account starts a 30-day free trial with everything enabled — one trial per OHIP
billing number, which is why registration asks for it. After the trial, membership is priced
as a small percentage of billings (see Pricing). Your existing records
always remain readable on your phone regardless of membership state.
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Quick answers live on the FAQ. Still stuck? Visit
Support — and never email patient names, health numbers, or claim files.