This screen has your setting for the Billing Module.
Auto Messages
If selected "Yes", this feature will automatically use the message selected when a patient-assigned invoice reaches the associated age. For example, if an invoice is 1 mo old the message Final will be used!
Finance Charges & Ledger Limits
If you intend to add a finance charge to overdue patient balances, select "Yes" and enter the yearly percentage rate as a decimal (12% would be .12). For Delay enter the number of months grace period you will allow before a finance charge is added (i.e. 2 means an invoice will be 2 months old before a finance charge is added). The finance charge is added as the last line item on an invoice and is updated automatically at the beginning of each aging run! Finance charges can be turned off on a patient-by-patient or an invoice-by-invoice basis if needed.
If you want to be warned about a patient's ledger amount, select the amount in the field Ledger Limit.
- Blank means no warning
- $0 means any balance gets a warning
- Other amounts mean the patient ledger must equal or exceed to amount.
This warning appears as a pop-up message in the Patient Module when you have searched for and found a patient.
Statements
- Ask for statement - If you want to be prompted to print a statement when leaving the Charge Entry screen select Yes. Otherwise, you will have to remember to click Print!
- Show details - When a regular statement is printed, you may or may not want all line item details (charges, payments, adjustments, etc.) to be listed. You have the ability to turn off the printing of these details on regular statements. There are three setting, "Yes" (shows all details, "No" (shows no details just the amount owed or paid, and "Minimal" which is something in between.
- If Monthly Sort by... is
"Patient" than monthly statement do not sort by provider and show the
open invoice in the order they were created. If you select "Doctor" the
statement sorts by doctor instead. Use this selection for an office in
which the providers share expenses and are basically independent.
- The Statement
Message will appear at the top of each invoice. If you choose to
change the text in this box, do not go beyond the boundaries of this
box or the text will not print properly!
- If you select Strict Checkout as Yes then you will not be able to create a complete day sheet until all patients that have been Checked in (see the Summary screen in the Patients module) have been checked out. When you print a Superbill for a patient they are automatically checked in!
- Accounting Type selects how you want ledgers and monthly statements to be printed, either by patient OR by the guarantor of a patient (or patients). This second choice is particularly useful for pediatric practices. Once you select an accounting type you should NOT select the other.
- If Daily reports
use date... is
"Performed" then your reports will reflect the date that charges or
payments were actually done and NOT posted. If you select "Created"
then your reports will reflects what was done on that date or date
range.
If you need to charge tax (i.e. sales tax) on items sold to or performed on patients, select "Yes" and enter the tax rate as a decimal (6% would be .06). If you collect tax, you will be able to create a separate report showing how much sales tax you have collected during any time period you select. The calculated tax is added to an invoice as a separate line item based on the sales tax Percentage you enter.
Next Superbill Number
If you are going to print or fill-in superbills from within PracticeMaker®, you can elect to sequentially number them if you want. The system administrator can decide what the next number is going to be. Any change is logged.
Charge Posting Edits
If you select Managed Care Edits to be "Yes" the following items, and more, are checked before and during invoice creation:
- check for correct referrals
- Remind you to collect co-payments and warn you when none or the wrong amount was collected
- Warns you when a patient with a managed care insurance has no assigned family doctor
- If a referral is required, an invoice will not be created unless a valid referral has been entered (not expired, remaining visits, referral number field not blank)!
If you always want the patient's major diagnoses to be added to an invoice select Add Diagnosis as "Yes". If a diagnosis is flagged as "99" it is not added to the invoice and there are up to 4 diagnoses per claim.