Accounts

Accounts in the main menu shows what is owed on every account, added up from every charge, payment, adjustment, transfer and refund. Nobody types a balance: it always matches the records behind it.

The accounts list#

Each row is one account with:

• Balance: what is owed less any credit on the account;
• Patient owes: what the patient or responsible party owes now;
• Insurance pending: what payers still owe;
• Credit: patient payments not yet applied to a charge;
• the aging bands 0-30 to 120+ days;
• Collection stage, with On hold when statements are held (see Collections);
• Payment plan, with the next installment due (see Payment plans);
• the Last payment and the Last statement.

Use Group by to list one row per Responsible party (the default) or per Patient. Siblings who share a responsible party share one row, with each patient listed under it. Balances hides accounts with nothing owed and no credit; choose Include settled to see them too.

Narrow the list with the filters in the toolbar:

• Balance: a range, such as $50 to $250, or accounts with a credit balance;
• Aging: accounts that owe something at least 31, 61, 91 or 121 days old;
• Payer: accounts with insurance still pending from one payer;
• Stage: one collection stage;
• Credit and Plan: accounts with or without credit, or on a payment plan or not.

Pick patients in the patient panel to narrow the list, and the location switcher limits it to one location.

Open an account#

Click the account name to open it. The account shows:

• Balance, Patient owes, Insurance pending and Credit, with the last payment;
• Aging split between insurance and the patient;
• Responsible party: every patient whose balance rolls up to the same person, with a link to each account;
• Ledger: every financial event with what it did to insurance, the patient and credit, and the balance after it;
• Payment plan: the plan's installments and what has been paid (see Payment plans);
• Collections: the collection stage, any hold or agency placement, and the dated trail of every step (see Collections);
• Statements: each statement produced for the account and how it was delivered (see Statements);
• Billing notes: notes about the bill, such as a promise to pay. They are the chart's Billing notes, so they also show in the chart's Notes; Add Note starts a Billing note.

The ledger lists events newest first. Choose Group by, Claim above the ledger to list each claim's charges, payments and adjustments together, with the claim number linking to the claim; activity on no claim comes last. Click a ledger row's date to open where it came from: the charge, or the payment the money came from.

Act on an account#

From the account's header:

• New Payment takes a patient or responsible party payment, the same as in the patient's billing (see Patient payments).
• New Statement produces a statement and prints or sends it (see Statements).
• New Charge adds a fee or supply (see Manual charges).
• Create Invoice, in the header's menu, starts an invoice to a school district or agency (see Agency invoices).

Charges and payments are never edited on an account. A mistake is corrected where it was made, by voiding a charge or reversing a payment, and the ledger shows both the original and the correction.

Who is the responsible party#

The responsible party is the contact marked Responsible party on the patient's chart, or the patient when there is none. Brothers and sisters share a responsible party when their contacts are the same person: pick the parent in Same person as on the contact form (see Contacts and guardians). A parent who becomes a patient of the clinic joins the account they pay for.

Click Statement Settings in the Responsible party section to change how statements reach them: Statements by mail or email, the Email for statements, and Leave out of batch statement runs. For a shared responsible party you can also correct the name and mailing address, which changes them on every chart they are on.

Permissions#

Reading accounts needs permission to read the patient ledger; therapists do not have it by default. Producing and sending statements and changing statement settings need permission to run statements. Payment plans, collections and period close each have their own permission, and taking payments and adding charges need theirs.