You can link a single patient account link to any number of non-insurance payers, including the patient herself, a family member, an attorney, a grant agency or any other person or organization. Likewise, you can link many patients to a single non-insurance payer.
To set up the non-insurance payers on a patient account, start by opening up a patient’s list of Non-Insurance Payers as follows:
- In the Navigation Bar on the left side of your screen, expand Patients, then select Patients or Patients – Billing.
- Locate the desired patient in the list and double-click it to open it.
- In the lower part of the Patient screen, select the Payers tab.
- On the Payers tab, select the Non-Insurance Payers tab.
Add the Patient as a Payer on the Patient’s Account
Most often, children are not payers on their own accounts, but when the patient is an adult, she will almost always be responsible for some charges, even if she has good insurance. For this reason, one of the first tasks when setting up her account will be to see that she is a listed payer. For your convenience, SOS provides a button to do just that.
When you click this “Create Patient Payer” button, a new row will appear in the Payers list, showing that the patient is responsible for 100% of the charges not covered by insurance. Double-click this new row to adjust any of the payer settings you would like. There are actually only three:
- Percent responsibility for non-insurance charges.
- Whether or not to charge interest for unpaid balances.
- Whether or not to hide this payer in the payer list on a new charge entry for the current patient.
Note that there are some other options, such as whether to include this payer with printing statements, that are available to review and change. These options default in accordance with your system settings, so they only need adjustment if this particular patient has unusual billing requirements. These options can be found on the payer’s detail screen (Billing Lookups > Patient (Self) Payers). That screen looks just like the screenshot shown in the section just below this one.
Add a Parent or Other Third Party as a Payer on the Patient’s Account
To add a parent or other third party to a patient’s Non-Insurance Payers list, you must first add the payer to the master list of Non-Insurance Payers. Once that has been done, you can add the new payer to the patient’s list.
- On the left hand Navigation Bar, expand Billing Lookups.
- Select Non-Insurance Payers. The list should open on the right.
- Click the New icon at the far left of the top toolbar. A blank Non-Insurance Payer screen should open. Remarks about completing this form appear below the screen image.
Remarks
- This Payer Is A
Select either “Person” or “Organization”. If you select the “Organization”, then the three name fields will be replaced with just Organization Name.
- Show This Payer in All Datasets
Un-check this option if the payer should be displayed only in the current dataset. For example, if the current payer is a parent, you will not want the payer to appear in any other datasets. On the other hand, if the payer is a public one, such as an attorney or a public agency or department, it may be appropriate to have the payer available for use in all of your datasets. When in doubt, SOS recommends that you leave this option un-checked.
- Sent To Collections On
If you employ and outside collections agency, and this payer account has been turned over to that company, then enter the date that occurred in this field. In the future you may want to know when that action took place. In addition, SOS will suppress additional statements for this account once it has become the responsibility of your collections agency.
- Optional GL Account #
If you plan to export Accounts Receivable data from SOS to an external General Ledger Accounting package, you can enter the appropriate account identifier from that package in this field.
- Payer Communications
Add all desired mailing addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses in this Communications panel. These are added in exactly the same way as in the Patient screen. For details, refer to Entering a New Patient, Step 3: Patient Communications .
Additional Non-Insurance Payer Tabs
The Non-Insurance Payer screen includes several other useful tabs:
- Patient Accounts
Select the Patient Accounts tab to see Accounts Receivable data for each patient for whom the current payer is responsible. For example, if the current payer is the father and payer for each of three children, look at the Patient Accounts tab of the father’s Non-Insurance Payer screen to see a row for each of the children, detailing the date last billed, the aged balances, and other related information.
- Checks, Credit Cards, EFT, Cash, Other
There is a separate tab for each type of payment, so you can see the details of all the payments that have been made without having to comb through each related patient ledger. Each tab displays information appropriate to that type of payment.
