This section discusses the third section of the Payment Screen.
You must read the Payments Screen section first before reading this section.
Because you can have both patient and insurance charges on the same invoice, and because of the variety of payment types, you need to review and fully understand the list of payment/debit codes located in the Payment Type Section of the PickList Module.
This section discusses the following posting scenarios:
- posting a payment for a patient-only charge
- posting a patient copay or deductible
- posting an insurance payment from a check
- posting multiple payments from one bulk check(either patient of insurance)
- button driven actions
- what happens after payment posting
- automated and manual claim processing
arrow, but much more happens. The
fields are checked for errors, the new payment line is created and then
a series of calculations run to make sure that all the bases are
covered. As you read on, you will get step by step instructions on the
posting of payments!
-
In the payment entry section, be sure to post the correct amount, enter check numbers when appropriate and select the correct payment type (PT).Do you make any adjusts to an invoice that you did not get properly paid on.
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The bottom section allows you to easily reprocess a claim, track what dates a claim was sent via paper or electronic, or to send, add a message to or track patient statements.
If a patient has a “self or patient-only” charge (a charge not going to insurance and typically using fee schedule A), we have only two chooses for posting a payment against that charge. To start adding a payment, click into the PT field and the pop-up list appears (as above). Your two choices are...
- 7 is for Self-Chk/Chg. Click once on “7”. Enter the Date if needed (today is assumed), the Amount and the required Reference, if a check is used or an authorization number if a charge is used! If a charge card is being used, you can set up the Source field as being AX for Amex, DC for Discover Card, M/C for MasterCard or VI for Visa!
- 8 is for Self-Cash. Click once on “8” or press “8” on the keyboard then press return to fill in your choice. Next, enter the amount and press enter or return!
button. As
with entering a charge, this checks fields
for errors and then posts the payment.
- To clear
the payment
entry fields before the
payment is posted click the
icon. If you want to delete
a posted payment
click theicon
on
that payment line and confirm your
action when the dialog box appears. You cannot delete any payments after an
invoice has
been “paid off” or if the payment was not posted today, only the
administrator
has access to that.
Posting a COPAY or DEDUCTIBLE payment from a patient
Posting this type of payment is almost identical to the patient-only payment above. However, the choices are slightly different. Pay types 3, 4, 5 and 6 are available to use, as seen in the PT drop down list below.
As with other payment selections, if you enter a check or credit card payment you need to enter the Reference (just the check number is entered, not "chk no. 3123", only "3123"). If a credit card was used, you would select which credit card (AX, DC, M/C or VI) from the Source drop down list. Once you complete the payment click the
arrow. Once you do that a
series of dialogs guides your through payment reassignment, etc. (read
more below).Posting an insurance check uses the pay type of 1 (Insurance Payment). Otherwise, the payment is entered as any other described above. Once you click the
arrow, the automated
system checks the payment and cycle the invoice as discussed below.Posting a check with multiple payments
PracticeMaker® allows you to post multiple payments from one bulk check and keep track of the payments. Below is an example of how the Bulk Check Information section is used.
- Enter the amount of the bulk check in the Amount field, just as 535.31 has been added below.
- Click the
icon
to transfer this amount into the Remaining field. It is this
field that is debited after you post a payment so you know how
much is left on a check! - Check off
Save
so that the check information entered (PT, Date, Reference,
Source) is saved after you post the payment. Otherwise all
the entries in the temporarily fields will go away after you post the
payment. You want to use the same info again except the amount - In the PT field select the payment type, in this case 1 for Insur-Payment.
- Today's date is put into the Date field but you can change it
- In Reference put the check number
- In Source there is no need to select the source since it is linked to the current Bal From insurance.
- Now find the first invoice on the bulk check's EOB.
- Enter the amount of the payment in the Amt$ field
and click the arrow to process
the
payment.
Because there is money in the Remaining field you will get the dialog below asking if you want to debit the check or not. If you click OK the amount in Remaining will be debited by the amount ins Amt$, other wise the math does not occur.
When the amount you enter in Amt$ equals the amount in Remaining, and you click OK at the dialog above, you will get the dialog below. There is a whole section later on the dialog boxes you get after you post an insurance payment.
Button Driven Functions
Most of the actions that need to be done to an invoice occur automatically after a payment is posted (see below). However, there are occasions when you need to manually do things, such as re-assign a claim, change the billing order, or make adjustments.
Reassigning to another insurance or patient
Though the program will prompt you to reassign an invoice to another party once the primary has paid, there are times when you will want to manually reassign the invoice.
Across the top of
the screen, just below the blue patient demographics section, are three
buttons to help you manually reassign the claim. In this case the
primary insurance is Medicare, the secondary is AARP-United
HC and the third
Patient. To assign the invoice
to one of these simply click on its
name, and the Billed to: date is changed to today's date to
properly re-age the invoice.
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The other buttons that come in handy are the ones in the lower right section, as seen above.
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The Recalc button recalculates the amounts if think they are off.
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Clicking Adjust off insurance balance does just what it says. You will also get warned if you do or do not accept assignment on the primary insurance (see the two examples below, with Mac and PC images).
- Clicking Insurance Bal to Patient gives you the dialog below. If there is a calculated copayment for this claim, it is inserted into the dialog's field for you. If you click Entire balance is assigned to the patient. Clicking Partial assigns the amount in the field, while Approved gives the entire approved amount.
Add Finance Charge also does what its says if your system is set up to add finance charges.
Goto record gives you the dialog below so you can quickly advance to a record in the current set reather than clicking the next or prev buttons.
Find All undoes any search so you can browse all the records.
Retrieve Saved Set will reproduce the set of records that was saved from one of the buttons used above.
The Claim Processing section
This section is explained in the Billing, Paper Claims section
The Statement section
To read more about this section click here!
updated 9/12/2004