The Billing Module is the financial center of PracticeMaker®. For more detailed information, please refer to the Billing chapter of the PracticeMaker® manual.
Please Note: It is important that the patient’s proper billing information be entered correctly. If you have not done this already, please refer to the PATIENTS MODULE chapter of this manual.
Starting a New Invoice
From any of the patient’s screens, click on the blue Billing Tab. Make sure the patient’s insurance information is entered correctly if you are billing insurance. Make sure the proper “Bill First…” is selected and click on either Patient Invoice or Insurance Invoice. You will be asked to confirm your “Bill First” selection. A new invoice is created.
Verify Billing Information
At the upper left hand part of the screen
Make sure the correct Facility (where the patient was seen), Off Doc (under whom this invoice is billed), and Examiner (who saw the patient)are correctly entered.
Middle top section
- Confirm that the insurance for this claim, if being used, is properly selected. If not click the Change button.
- To the right fill in any fields required for this claim, and make sure the Prior Auth (also called referral number) is filled in if needed.Any Labs needs to be checked Yes if you paid for any of the services for which you are now billing or you did x-rays in the office on this patient (dental). If you select Yes you must enter an amount in the field Lab Amt. If you did x-rays just enter the number and disregard that the number is formatted as dollars.
- In the middle section (both pink and blue) click the Fill Dxs button to fill in the Diagnoses for this claim only... section with only current diagnosis (those not "99").
Adding charges to your invoice
- Click in the New Code field. Today’s date is entered into Date(must be today or earlier) as is the FS (fee schedule) associated with the Primary insurance.
- Enter the procedure code. A drop down list of your selected procedures appears. To type in your own just press either the delete or esc keys.
- If you forgot the code click the Procedures button to bring forward the Procedures database! If you enter a code and THEN press this button, the procedure entered will be found in Procedures for you to review!
- Date To only needs to be filled in when you are describing a range of dates for the services provided.
- DXs relates the listed diagnoses to the procedure. Use “123”, not “1,2,3” or “1-2-3”. You cannot relate a diagnosis line that does not have a diagnosis!
- Us is for the number of units or days the procedure was done. This number will be multiplied by the Item$ to get the total line charge,Total$.
- The Item$ fills in based on the fee schedule selected. If no value is entered in Item$,check the procedure and make sure that there is a fee associated with the selected fee schedule.
- With modifiers (M1, M2, M3, M4), each procedure in the Procedures database can have one default modifier assigned to it.
- Make sure all information is
entered correctly and click
. - If you notice an error after a
charge has been added (on the same day you posted it), you can correct
the Charge by clicking on the
. This refills the entry fields and remembers
where the data needs to be returned.
If you want to use just one fee schedule (not schedule A but still want to take advantage of this feature, you will have to check the P box as you create the line charge. This will assign the charge to the patient rather than the insurance.
Note: When an unpaid part of an insurance-related charge is assigned to the patient, it is temporarily subtracted from the insurance side of the invoice. If there are any patient charges(i.e.: copay, schedule A,etc.) on the invoice, you will be beeped if you try to leave the invoice without posting a patient payment.
Posting Payments
Because you can have both patient and insurance charges on the same invoice, you will need to select the type of payment that is being posted.
- If you click in the PT field, a pop-up list will appear with the different payment codes.
- If a patient has a charge not going to insurance (typically using fee schedule A), click into the PT field and choose either 7 for Self-Chk/Chg or 8 for Self-Cash.
- Enter or change the Date of the payment. Press [tab].
- Enter the amount Amt$ and press [tab]
- The Reference is for the check/bank number, authorization code, etc. Just enter the check number,not "check 0123".
- Source indicates where the money is coming from – SP (Patient), M/C, VI, etc.
- To clear the payment entry fields
before the payment is posted click the trash can
. If you want
to delete a posted payment click the trash can on that
payment line and confirm your action. You cannot delete any
payments after an invoice has been “paid off” or if the payment was not
posted
today.
Finishing up
When you are finished entering information for this patient, click Done. If there are any unpaid balances, you will be notified. You will also be asked if you want to schedule an appointment or recall for this patient.