balance due/patient credit

[hec]

i would like to request an update on how balance due/patient credit shows up on patient billing. right now when accounts are linked we can see on the overview page when a family member has a credit or balance due but when we click on the billing page it doesn't show up and sometimes the staff will forget. is there a way crystal can set up an alert that will notify staff that a family member has a balance due or account credit and if the staff would like to settle balance or apply credit to current patient. sometimes we let the patient leave the office before we realize their family member had a balance due that hasn't been settled for months or a credit that could have been applied to the visit.

[mdeyedoc]

Apr 23, 2016 7:31:07 GMT -6 hec said:

i would like to request an update on how balance due/patient credit shows up on patient billing. right now when accounts are linked we can see on the overview page when a family member has a credit or balance due but when we click on the billing page it doesn't show up and sometimes the staff will forget. is there a way crystal can set up an alert that will notify staff that a family member has a balance due or account credit and if the staff would like to settle balance or apply credit to current patient. sometimes we let the patient leave the office before we realize their family member had a balance due that hasn't been settled for months or a credit that could have been applied to the visit.

I'm hesitant about automated alerts because they are so obtrusive. It would also require that a separate alert be created for every linked member. Family members often come in around the same time so are more likely to have balances on other members and the vast majority are not a problem.  And there are privacy implications of us asking one patient about another (adult) pt's balance. 

A much bigger problem for my staff is missing the previous balances and credits for the actual patient that is checking out. The Overall Balance in grey just gets ignored all by itself in the upper right corner. I think moving that down next to the Inv Totals and displaying Amounts Due in red, like they are on the Quick View would be helpful. The Linked Totals from the Quick View could be displayed there too. It would be awesome if there could be some way to highlight it on the Quick View and Billing if it is long past due, say >60 or 90 days. Maybe blinking since red is already taken? LOL 

Marcia

[daverosemann]

We are running in to a similar issue. When a patient has linked accounts and a family member has a credit, the credit does not show up in red. Whereas, if someone has a balance due, it does show up in red on the linked accounts. Can the credits also show up in red, or just anytime there is not a zero balance. That way the staff can be more aware of transferring amounts to patients when they check out.

[jini30vcs]

Similar issue, but even more basic. If a patient has a balance but also has an old credit, or several credits, that match the balance amount, the Quick View only shows a patient balance of zero. The problem here is that on busy days, the staff is just likely to look at the zero and send the patient on their way without further reviewing the invoices. That leaves incomplete postings (2 invoices with a $50 credit and one invoice with a $100 balance). It would be much easier to keep clean accounts if the Quick View showed Credits and Balances separately, in different colors, like the other optometry practice management systems.

[tag701]

What if the linked accounts are shown on the billing page in a small box not as an alert? Also the Overall Balance definitely needs to be bigger and brighter.