Payments |
Insurance payments are entered in the Payment screen. If you are working in the Ledger and you click New Insurance Payment, the Batch Payment Entry screen is opened. Otherwise, when you receive an EOB, click Payments in the toolbar.
Entering new insurance payments from the Ledger screen is very time saving and can actually be fun (depending on your experience with other software systems). The insurance code and payment method are automatically entered for you. Additionally, when you click Distribute, the correct patient is automatically selected.
The Payment list shows all insurance payment entered in the program.
Click New Payment to open the Batch Payment Entry screen.
Choose the type of payment. If you reached this screen from the Ledger, much of the information is already entered because it pulls from the selected patient record and associated information.
Enter known information, such as insurance company making payment, payment method, check number, etc. Enter a description to help identify the payment if desired.
Enter the entire amount of the EOB. As you distribute monies, the Distributed Total amount is reduced.
Next, click Distribute. You are asked if you want to save the deposit. Click Yes.
If you reached the Batch Payment Entry screen from the Ledger, the patient selected in the Ledger is displayed in the EOB Entry screen. If you reached the Batch Payment Entry screen from the Payment screen, then you will need to manually select the patient.
Enter the sums paid next to the transactions covered. Enter any deductible or adjustments that relate to the transactions. When you collected the deductible payment at the end of the patient's appointment, the program didn't know where to apply the deductible. The EOB gives you that information. When you enter the deductible in this screen, the program updates all areas in the program where the deductible is displayed to show the portion that has been paid.
Click the Follow Up box if the EOB indicates that the insurance company did not pay for a particular procedure. Clicking this box leaves the procedure on the claim and does not mark the claim "Complete." You can run a special report that will show all of the "follow up" procedures so you can keep track of them and they don't slip through the cracks of the insurance payment highway.
When finished with the first patient, click Post Payments. The EOB Entry screen remains open and the Unposted Amount is reduced. Now choose the next patient covered by the EOB, and continue until all sums are distributed. When finished with the last patient, click Post Payments and Close.
When you distribute the last of the monies, click Post Payments and Close. The program tells you how many claims have been marked "Complete."
In the Ledger, all insurance payments are shown in green print, directly below the transactions to which they have been applied. This way you can see easily when a payment has been made.
If you edit a payment, notice that the Distributed Total amount now matches the Original Amount.
Correcting Payments If you make a mistake in posting a payment (e.g., wrong billing number, wrong patient, etc.), you must correct the payment. If you don't correct the mistake, your overall payment balance will be correct, but the billing will be wrong.
To correct a posting, open the Ledger, right-click the incorrect posting and choose Delete Transaction in the speed menu (or click Delete Transaction in the Options bar). A message pops up to verify that is what you want to do. Click Yes.
If the payment is part of a larger distribution, the program asks if you want to reduce the total payment by the amount you are deleting.
If you are working with a non-insurance payment, you will probably want to click Yes, because you most likely entered a wrong payment amount -- it looked like $75 and, upon closer scrutiny, you discover it was only $45. When you click Yes, the program changes the deposit amount shown in the Payment screen to $45 and corrects the amount applied to $45. (If you charged the patient $75 for a procedure and discovered it really only cost $45, you'd want to click No here. The amount applied would then change to $45, and a $30 prepayment amount would be created for the patient. This amount would show at the top of the Ledger screen.)
If you are working with an insurance payment, you most likely applied a payment to the wrong patient or to the wrong billing. To correct this type of mistake, say No. The program does not change the original payment amount ($75), but changes the amount applied ($45), leaving $30 unapplied.
To complete the correction, click Payments in the toolbar, click Find Unapplied Deposits, locate the insurance payment you just altered, double-click that payment and redistribute the unapplied amount ($30), being careful to choose the correct patient and/or billing number this time.
BE SURE TO APPLY TO THE CORRECT BILLING NUMBER!
Unapplied Deposits Sometimes the funds in a deposit may not have been applied. To find an incompletely applied deposit, click Find Unapplied Deposits.
Those payments that have not been completely applied are now the only payments shown in the Payment list.
Printing Deposit Slips After completing all deposits and payments, you can print a deposit list. Click Reports in the toolbar. Locate and double-click Deposit Slip. Add or change filters in the printing Search screen and then click OK. Preview the deposit slip in the Print Preview screen, then click the printer icon to print the slip and take your money to the bank.
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