There are two basic types of payers in SOS: Insurance and Non-Insurance payers.
Non-Insurance Payers
Examples of common non-insurance payers include:
- The patient herself when the patient is an adult.
- A parent or guardian when the patient is a child.
- An attorney for certain types of forensic referrals.
- A governmental or non-governmental agency that has accepted financial responsibility for treatment or evaluation costs.
You can detail any number of non-insurance payers on a single patient account. Furthermore, you can divide the non-insurance balance among them. For instance, you could name both of a child patient’s divorced parents as payers and specify that any amounts due should be divided 50-50 between them.
SOS also allows you to name the same non-insurance payer for more than one patient. You could, therefore, add a parent as a Non-Insurance Payer, then designate the parent as a payer on the accounts of each of the parent’s children. For details on adding and managing Non-Insurance Payers, see the article: Managing Patient Non-Insurance Payers.
Insurance Payers
Insurance payers in SOS are called Carriers. Each Carrier has one or more Insurance Plans. To link an Insurance Carrier and Plan to a particular patient, you add a new “Insurance Policy” to the patient, naming the desired Insurance Carrier/Plan on the Policy screen. See the article: Managing Patient Insurance Payers (Policies).