If a check you deposited is returned to you (bounced), you will have to flag the original check as “returned”. This action will increase the payer’s balance to the level it would have been if the payment had never been made. Follow this procedure to be sure that:
- Your financial records properly reflect the “un-payment”.
- The patient records include the reason for the payment reversal.
- The provider payroll reflects that the check was returned and therefore the payment was reversed.
This procedure is quite simple, actually.
- Find the payer in the appropriate Payer List and open the Detail view (Edit).
- Select the Check Vouchers tab.
- Notice the Return Check buttons that appear on the toolbar for this tab.
- You have a choice to just mark the check as returned by clicking the button on the left or you can click the button on the right if your organization charges a returned check fee. If you use the button on the right, a window will appear in which you can specify the appropriate service code, the amount of the fee, and the provider to which this fee should be linked. That provider will see the charge in his or her Provider Activity Report and Payroll. For this reason, some organizations use a special administrative “provider” to be used in these circumstances. In the following example, the organization uses a provider they created with the name “Office Office”.
When you click OK here, SOS will create a charge entry in the current daysheet with the returned check fee. - If you go back in the patient ledgers to any credits that had been paid with the returned check, you will find that the amounts of those credit entries and credit splits on those entries have been changed to zero. As a result, the patient’s balance will also have increased by the amount that has now been reversed.
