Negative remittance-distinguishing lab fees from write offs

[christim]

When we have a mass payment from an insurance company who we use their lab, sometimes the remittance for a particular patient is actually negative, once they reduce our payment by their lab fees.  To record this, we make a payment to the patient for the negative amount (so that the total of the entire insurance payment matches up at the end of the day).  That leaves a remaining balances on the patient's account that we then have to write off in Crystal.  

Since part of the write off is, in actuality, lab fees charged by the insurance company, how can we distinguish that in Crystal, so it doesn't all just show as a write off?

[KizerOpt]

I actually post the negative payment to the insurance and let our bookkeeper know that it will be an offset at a later date. She is interested in what actually hits the bank, and when she prints the production report, she makes a note of all payments, positive or negative. We have asked Crystal to give us an adjustment column, where we can record lab fees, chargebacks, etc. Currently there is no clean way of recording them.

Karen

[vaderkty]

Nov 19, 2014 13:04:01 GMT -6 christim said:

Since part of the write off is, in actuality, lab fees charged by the insurance company, how can we distinguish that in Crystal, so it doesn't all just show as a write off?

I work around by memo-ing "Lab charge back" on invoice itself. It still shows the correct amounts in daily production reports if it is a negative or a positive and we can track the individual pt. to know if doing (x) is better than doing (y) based on those charge-backs.
Having said this, We have VERY FEW lab charge backs for VSP. Davis Vision and Eyemed are our biggest charge back. We are lucky enough to do IOF for Eyemed and VSP which is why our charge-backs are lower than they would be and faster turn around time. Most orders we do same day or within 2 days.
I also avoid mass checks. I don't know why. I find it comforting to process each one separate and make sure nothing was missed. I also work a ridiculous amount of hours and from home so there is also that...