Trojan & Lighthouse

[Joe Gordon]

1. Trojan: This has been covered a couple of years ago- just hoping for an update from those using Trojan services for accessing benefit info. We just want a slick service that will save our administrators valuable time. I spoke with a couple of reps a few mins ago, and quite frustrated. The first rep just kept reading a script and could not understand any of my questions (kept telling me there is no need for the patient's name or ssn??). Then spoke with a lead sales rep(?) who was less than courteous with my q's. Is this an indication of their customer service? Are the reps more on the insolent side?

2. Lighthouse: Have seen recent posts from power users (Robert et al) who seem to really like this one. Spoke with Brian today- the opposite of Trojan- very professional, very knowledgeable. Our Admin spoke with Jim with a similar experience. Appears this service is very much on the ball. Is their software service as great as it sounds? How is their customer service?

Many Thanks for responses...Joe

[Jay]

1. Trojan: This has been covered a couple of years ago- just hoping for an update from those using Trojan services for accessing benefit info. We just want a slick service that will save our administrators valuable time. I spoke with a couple of reps a few mins ago, and quite frustrated. The first rep just kept reading a script and could not understand any of my questions (kept telling me there is no need for the patient's name or ssn??). Then spoke with a lead sales rep(?) who was less than courteous with my q's. Is this an indication of their customer service? Are the reps more on the insolent side?

We use Trojan every day with good results but our region is very well served by their database. You need to ensure that they have the good coverage in your region of the country. Technical support has been very good. In my experience they hold your hand with the installation and call you back asap. I remember when we installed it on our network I was on the phone for over an hour talking to this nice lady (Chastity) and everything worked really well after that. You must have had a bad experience. One of their programs has a bit of trouble displaying on our Widescreen monitors but Trojan support found a workaround.

2. Lighthouse: Have seen recent posts from power users (Robert et al) who seem to really like this one. Spoke with Brian today- the opposite of Trojan- very professional, very knowledgeable. Our Admin spoke with Jim with a similar experience. Appears this service is very much on the ball. Is their software service as great as it sounds? How is their customer service?

Lighthouse is good too but you really need to customize their boilerplates to avoid sending generic sounding emails and postcards. LH encourages you to do this. You can modify the text yourself but graphics can be tricky. LH offer some design support but I hired a designer to work with us and Lighthouse did not object to it. I was also not crazy about their Facebook/Website integration and ended up doing my own but I am sure others will have a different opinion.

Both these services are good solid workhorses but they are very slow to adopt your suggestions. They do what they do really well but if you take them too far adrift with modifications, they will stonewall you. In this they differ from Open Dental which is willing to change and grow and adapt almost on a daily basis. So if OD is the benchmark for your expectations, you might be a bit disappointed. Otherwise these services are great and just work.

[jordansparks]

It's true that with Trojan you don't need the patient name or SSN. Each employer has one or more group plans, and since everyone on that plan has the same benefits, Trojan can give you information about that plan without needing patient name. True that this doesn't actually tell you if that particular patient has coverage right now, but that's usually not a problem. The information you are usually after is the benefit breakdown. This model doesn't tell you about things like how much they've used this year. You can supplement it with quick lookups on insurance company websites once your office is set up with a user and password for that insurance company. Trojan (as well as the rest of the industry) is trying hard to get live benefit info for individual patients. They might have an add-on product that can help with this.

[Joe Gordon]

Many Thanks, Jay and Jordan. Very helpful info. We are hoping for dates for last bwx, pano, etc. Right now we do look up the info on websites via login if it's available. Trojan does have a service where you can call them directly about an individual patient and they will give you the hx. I think it is $6/patient. Just wondering how efficient that is.