Payment date

[atd]

This may be a stupid question, but which date do you enter in the payment date field for both insurance and patient checks? The manual says to use the check date for patient payments, but says to use the entry date for insurance checks. Just wondering what the reasoning is for them being different. I do see there's an entry date automatically recorded in the patient payments, which is why entering the check date there seems to make sense. Is the entry date recorded for insurance checks? I do have the need to know what the date of the insurance check date is for some quarterly analysis I have to do, so that's what I'm inclined to enter. But, I don't want to mess up any reports that may use those dates (i.e. aging?)

Thank you!

[jordansparks]

I would say the date of entry, although it doesn't really matter. I couldn't find in the manual where it said to use the check date for patient payments. The "entry date" is a totally different security measure. If you have to know the date on the insurance checks, then I would say to use that date. I can't see how that would cause any problems since it only takes a few days for the insurance check to arrive by mail.

[atd]

As I'm closing 2008 I'm thinking about this payment date again. If we use the check date as the payment date, won't some payments we receive in 2009 look like they were posted in 2008? The production & income reports are showing income payments posting on weekends, probably because I'm using the check date.

I'm planning on using the new "lock date" in the security section going forward and I also want to make sure my month-end reports are accurate when it comes to payments received and accounts receivable. So I'm thinking I need to use the entry date, or "received" date rather than the check date. However, I do have the need to record the check date, so I don't know where I'd put that information. What is considered correct from an accounting standpoint?

FYI - here's the conflicting info I found in the manual.
http://www.open-dent.com/manual/payments.html
Patient Payments: "The payment date at the very top is the date of the actual check and will be used on the Deposit Slip."
http://www.open-dent.com/manual/claimpayment.html
Insurance Payments (last paragraph): "The payment date should be today's date because that is the date that will show on the deposit slip. "

[JimZ]

In our office, the date we receive the check (Ins or personal) is the date we declare it as income. Therefore it is the "date of posting" that gets entered in OD.

I'm sorry for being dense, but what is the purpose of recording the date the check was issued?

Jim

[atd]

The only reason I need the check date is that we receive quarterly lump sum payments from multiple health plans, which is calculated as a percentage of what they paid us the previous quarter. I always do my own calculations to make sure we are receiving the correct amount, therefore I query the data based on their payment date rather than the date of service or date we received the payment. Every quarter there has been an issue with at least one of the payments and I have to track down why and prove that my calculations are correct. Without the information we would have been shorted a lot of money over the years. Otherwise, I wouldn't need it.

[jordansparks]

I changed the patient payment page to indicate that it's date of entry rather than date of check. I suggest that in your situation, for insurance payments, you could use the check issue date. You could manually review the handful of checks that are affected by the new year. You could then put in a request for a check issue date on the insurance payment, and we could hope that that field would be added by next year so that when the next new year rolls around, you won't have this issue.