If an office is 100 percent
accurate at inputting insurance
payments, they would never have
insurance credits.
Unfortunately, no office is
perfect. This page is designed
as a help to clean up the
insurance credits you may have
in your system.
What is
an insurance credit?
An insurance credit is an
insurance payment that was
incorrectly posted inside the
system.
To find out
whether or not you have
insurance credits, first print
out an Insurance credit
listing report.
To do this,
go to Reports,
Financial, Credit Listing
- Insurance. Then click
Print.
There are
two types of insurance credits:
positive balance and
negative balance.
Fixing insurance credits (with a
positive balance):
1. Click
on the Activities menu,
then click Enter Payments.
2. Click on the magnifying
glass
next to Search Payments.
3. Check the box next to
Show All Payments. After
the box is checked, uncheck
it. You should now see all the
credits in your system, both
Insurance and Patient credits.
The Insurance credits are
indicated with an 'I' on
the left hand side.
4. On the right hand side, look
for two columns named Amount
and Unapplied at the
top. The Amount column will
show the payment amount that was
entered, and the Unapplied
column will show the amount that
was not disbursed toward any
transactions.
5. To correct this credit,
simply double-click on it. This
will bring up the payment screen
with the details of the
payment. The reason why this
payment is listed as an
insurance credit is because the
Total Pmt field (just
above the Post button) does not
match the Amount field
(at the top).
6. Using the Date Paid field,
you will need to find your
Explanation of Benefits (EOB)
for that Date. The bottom
rectangular box in the Payment
screen indicates the patient,
date of service, and procedure
code that this payment has
already been disbursed toward.
The following scenarios will
likely exist:
a)
Scenario #1: Incomplete
payment - Basically, the
entire amount of the payment
was not disbursed. If that
is the case, look at the top
rectangular box for the
remaining patient(s) on this
EOB, and finish disbursing
the payment. Once the
Total Pmt field matches
the Amount field, hit
post.
b)
Scenario #2: Payment already
posted - In this
scenario, the Amount
field and Unapplied
field is usually the same.
This can happen if the
payment got posted
incorrectly the first time,
then correct the second
time. If that is the case,
there won't be anything to
apply the credit to. If
this scenario is true, you
can delete the payment by
clicking Delete (Entire
Payment).
Caution: ONLY DO THIS
if you are certain that the
payment was already entered
into the system.
Fixing Insurance Credits (with a
negative balance):
A credit
with a negative balance is
usually created when the user
forgot to fill in the Amount box
on the payment screen. To
correct this, do the following:
1. Click
on the Activities menu,
then click Enter Payments.
2. Click on the magnifying
glass
next to Search Payments.
3. Check the box next to
Show All Payments.
4. You should see a column at
the top right of this window
that says Unapplied.
Double-click on that column
(make sure you are
double-clicking right on the
word "Unapplied").
5. This will numerically list
all unapplied payments. Now,
scroll up to the top.
6. At the top, you should see
all your negative credits. To
correct these negative credits,
simply double-click on
them.
7. Now, fill the amount in at
the top (it should match what
you have filled in for Total
Pmt). Then hit Post.
