The start of a new invoice actually begins in the Patients Module on the patient's Billing tab. An example is shown below of a patient who has billable insurance. If a patient has no insurance you would simply leave Bill First... as Patient and click the Create Patient Invoice button!


The specifics on this example patient are:

• There is one insurance, Blue Shield.
• The patient is flagged as Bill first...Insurance. Many times patients have an insurance but it may not pay for office visits. 
• There are several dialog boxes that remind you to enter or select the correct billing situation.
• An insurance invoice can have both insurance and patient charges with PracticeMaker®. You will learn more about this later!
  
• Auth needed is "Yes". This means a "Prior Auth No", or a referral, is required to be seen. The fields have been filled properly. This referral has three visits and none have been used yet. 
• Auth needed can could also be "Today's exam is routine" if this patient is eligible for a routine exam and no referral is needed. This is common in eye care and GYN offices.
  
• A $15 Copay needs to be collected
• There is also a Billing Note from the person who got the referral information on-line.
  

To start the new insurance invoice click the Create Insurance Invoice button. With this example the dialog below confirms your selection and reminds you to collect the $15 copay.


In our example, the referral was properly entered, but if it was not the dialog below would appear. This happens if one or more of the following occurs:

• No Prior Auth No.
• The Auth Expires date is absent or expired
• There are no Remaining visits

If there are no insurances selected and you click the Create Insurance Invoice button, you get this dialog. You cannot create an insurance invoice unless there is no insurance listed.


If Bill First...Insurance is selected and you click the Create Patient Invoice button you will get the warning below.


Once you have passed through all the dialogs, a new record is created in the Billing Module and the Charge Entry screen below appears. To read about entering charges click here.