Statements for patients paying
Statements for patients paying
What is the best way to handle this circumstance? The patient pays us for treatment on the day of service, the statement reflects a credit because insurance has just been sent and assignment of benefits is to patient. Is there anyway for the statement to just say thanks for the payment, no balance is due and your payment from the insurance company will be arriving to you shortly, rather than a credit?
Re: Statements for patients paying
Why have Open Dental calculate insurance estimates for that plan if benefits are assigned to the patient? That is, why create the credit to begin with? For the messages on the bill, you could use "add quick note" by right clicking in the notes field of the statement and paste in a billing note you've set up for that purpose.
DMA, Inc.
http://www.dmatechsolutions.com
http://www.dmatechsolutions.com
Re: Statements for patients paying
In cases like this, we close out the claim as soon as it's sent (so after it's e-sent we input 'payment' as $0...write in the Reason Underpaid "Your ins check will arrive to you shortly" or "Payment being sent to patient"). Then when you print the statement/receipt, it shows the patient paid in full and ins company paid $0. You can then reinforce that the check is coming to them with your message at the bottom of the statement as suggested above.
Re: Statements for patients paying
We used to do indicate Balances with our old statements in Excel like this...
Total balance =
Est'd Insur. pending =
--------------------------
Est'd Pt portion Due Now =
It worked well in those instances when the insurance estimate was wrong for any # of reasons,
like they forgot to tell us about the other dentist they just saw and ran out of benifits,
or their policy had some weird frequency limits like replacing fillings only every 10yrs.
This informs patients they are responcible for any portion not paid by the insurance and what that is.
and they are paying only their estimated CoPayment.
This makes it easier to explain if we have to re-bill the patient due to an insurance underpayment.
Total balance =
Est'd Insur. pending =
--------------------------
Est'd Pt portion Due Now =
It worked well in those instances when the insurance estimate was wrong for any # of reasons,
like they forgot to tell us about the other dentist they just saw and ran out of benifits,
or their policy had some weird frequency limits like replacing fillings only every 10yrs.
This informs patients they are responcible for any portion not paid by the insurance and what that is.
and they are paying only their estimated CoPayment.
This makes it easier to explain if we have to re-bill the patient due to an insurance underpayment.
Re: Statements for patients paying
"In cases like this, we close out the claim as soon as it's sent (so after it's e-sent we input 'payment' as $0...write in the Reason Underpaid "Your ins check will arrive to you shortly" or "Payment being sent to patient"). Then when you print the statement/receipt, it shows the patient paid in full and ins company paid $0. You can then reinforce that the check is coming to them with your message at the bottom of the statement as suggested above."
I CAN ZERO OUT THE CLAIM SO THE PATIENTS RECEIPT SHOWS A ZERO BALANCE DUE ON THEIR RECEIPT. UNFORTUNATELY, IF I DO THAT, THE CLAIM WILL NOT SHOW UP IN OD'S "OUTSTANDING CLAIMS" REPORT AFTER 30 DAYS. HOW WILL I KNOW WHICH CLAIMS NEED TO BE RESENT?
I CAN ZERO OUT THE CLAIM SO THE PATIENTS RECEIPT SHOWS A ZERO BALANCE DUE ON THEIR RECEIPT. UNFORTUNATELY, IF I DO THAT, THE CLAIM WILL NOT SHOW UP IN OD'S "OUTSTANDING CLAIMS" REPORT AFTER 30 DAYS. HOW WILL I KNOW WHICH CLAIMS NEED TO BE RESENT?
Re: Statements for patients paying
You don't know when the patient receives his check to be able to mark the claim PAID at some random future date, so why are you trying to still track it? Why do you want these claims, for which you'll NEVER get ins payment, cluttering up your Overdue's that *really* have to be followed up on?
If you're that concerned with it/want super customer service/love the patient/etc, add to your note at the bottom of the statement that "An insurance claim has been filed for you. You'll get your check soon. If you don't get your check in 30 days, call us and we'd be happy to follow up with the insurace for you." As the purists say, ESPECIALLY if you're not taking assignment, the contract is between patient and ins, so the patient can follow up with his insurance. (That's also why for some of these cases, we hand the patient a copy of the claim and highlight the *payment is going to the patient* box and have HIM send it so he sees we're not trying to scam him in some way, as if we're interested in doing that. Then it doesn't look like 'the dentist just wanted to collect my money and never sent in my claim.' That's only for a very select few. But that's an argument for the DT Insurance boards....)
If you're that concerned with it/want super customer service/love the patient/etc, add to your note at the bottom of the statement that "An insurance claim has been filed for you. You'll get your check soon. If you don't get your check in 30 days, call us and we'd be happy to follow up with the insurace for you." As the purists say, ESPECIALLY if you're not taking assignment, the contract is between patient and ins, so the patient can follow up with his insurance. (That's also why for some of these cases, we hand the patient a copy of the claim and highlight the *payment is going to the patient* box and have HIM send it so he sees we're not trying to scam him in some way, as if we're interested in doing that. Then it doesn't look like 'the dentist just wanted to collect my money and never sent in my claim.' That's only for a very select few. But that's an argument for the DT Insurance boards....)
Re: Statements for patients paying
I do know when the patient receives the check because UCCI sends me a copy of the "EOB" letting us know a check was sent to them. I just do it for my own piece of mind. They do us a favor by prepaying so I want to make sure they get their reimbursement in a timely manor.
Re: Statements for patients paying
got it. wow, that's a nice ins co to send you a copy of the eob.
so after you print the patient receipt, just put in Total Payment as $0 like you're closing out the claim and then change the status back to Sent (and delete the received date) and it will again show on your outstanding claims. It'll look really goofy, but at least when opening the patient's account you'd still know you're not expecting $ from the ins co, patient has paid his amount due, and you can still track the claim process time like you're waiting for it to be received. Then when you get the EOB, you just add in the received date or change the date of the Total Payment.
so after you print the patient receipt, just put in Total Payment as $0 like you're closing out the claim and then change the status back to Sent (and delete the received date) and it will again show on your outstanding claims. It'll look really goofy, but at least when opening the patient's account you'd still know you're not expecting $ from the ins co, patient has paid his amount due, and you can still track the claim process time like you're waiting for it to be received. Then when you get the EOB, you just add in the received date or change the date of the Total Payment.