Thursday, July 25, 2013

Me Pay Prepay!

As an introduction to our third installment in our Co-pay Series, I would like to share a little story:


This is Caveman.
             
              Caveman has a problem...

                            He really wants to get a forehead reduction...

                                                  The procedure is going to cost $5000...

                                                                            And he does not have insurance...


What should poor Caveman do?!

"Me pay prepay!" -Caveman

Caveman goes and sees a doctor who tells him the procedure will cost $5000, which needs to be paid in advance. He decides to go ahead with the procedure and pays the $5000 at the time he gets his surgery scheduled.

Cavewoman, upon seeing her husband’s new small forehead, decides she needs counseling to deal with the change. She does have insurance, but she also has a large deductible that has not yet been met. She decides to have 10 sessions at $100 a session. She pays in cash each time she sees the counselor.

Both of these cases would be entered into the system using Pre-pay.

To enter a prepayment, go to the Scheduler and right click on the patient's appointment. For Caveman it would be the date of the scheduled surgery, and for Cavewoman it would be the date of the counseling session. From the list of options, select the Co-Pay button (remember when we did this last week?...):


When the Co-Pay window appears, select the Prepay option. Enter the desired sum into the Amount field, select a Method of payment, and add a Note if you choose. In the case of Caveman, you would not want to enter a Procedure Code, because there could be several codes with a large procedure like a forehead reduction. However, a procedure code would be useful in the case of Cavewoman since she may have two charges for each visit: a counseling session which her insurance will not cover (and to which the prepayment should be applied) and a medication management charge which insurance will cover (and should be left open for the eventual insurance payment).


Note: It's easy to confuse Prepay and Other Amount. The main thing to remember is that Other Amount applies funds to the co-pay and the personal balance. Patients that do not have insurance or haven't met their deductible may not have a co-pay or a personal balance. This is why we use prepay.

Once you select the OK button. you will be prompted to choose a printer for the receipt. It's as simple as that.

The pre-paid money will be applied to a special $0.00 pre-pay charge.  When any charge matching the patient, date of service, and procedure code (if entered) becomes due from the PER payor, the money will be automatically transferred from the pre-pay  charge to the new charge.

I hope you have enjoyed our series on Co-payments and Pre-payments. Post any questions in the Comment section below or contact us via the Feedback button.

Contributor: Kylie McKenzie Soder

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