Payments across multiple practitioners

Abstract

Offices with multiple practitioners (or fee earners) face a variety of challenges, not least of which to do with how the associate practitioners are to be paid. Many offices elect to pay their associate practitioners based on the revenue that they collect as well as the number of services they render. In this case, it is critical to the office that all payments are recorded against the correct practitioner. This article describes how to exploit the features of Capable 21C to ensure that payments are recorded correctly.

Underlying challenge

For a typical patient/client visit, a service is rendered and a payment is made. In its most simple configuration, Capable 21C will default both the service and the payment to the same practitioner. There are other more complicated scenarios where this simple configuration may not be ideal. These are:

• When a patient/client has received services from multiple practitioners, and elects to pay the entire bill at once. In this case, the simple configuration will not advise the operator that the debt is split across multiple practitioners and the operator may not know to split the payment correctly.
• When a patient/client prepays for a number of services, and then receives those services from several practitioners. This is problematic, as the operator may not know which practitioners will render the services at the time that the payment is received. In this situation, it is impossible for the operator to assign the payment to the correct practitioner(s).

By changing the configuration of Capable 21C, it can become much easier to manage these scenarios so that the payments are recorded correctly.

Resolution

When a patient/client receives services from multiple practitioners and elects to pay the entire bill at once:

One option is to train all operators to process these invoices particularly carefully. When the invoice/receipt window is open, the operator can add multiple services to the one invoice, and split the payment so that there is more than one payment entry on the invoice. To do this:

1. Open the receipt normally.
2. Ensure that all services for the visit are included on the receipt, and that the correct practitioner is nominated for each service. The practitioner nominated for the service can be altered by clicking on their name.
3. Tally up the value of services for the first practitioner, and insert that figure in the first payment line.
4. Click on the second payment line directly beneath the payment method on the first payment line.
5. Choose the same payment method.
6. Click on the practitioner’s name on the second payment line, and select the second practitioner to have rendered services.
7. Tally up the value of services for the second practitioner, and insert that figure on the second payment line.
8. Repeat steps 4-7 as needed if a third or subsequent practitioner is involved.
9. Complete the invoice/receipt normally.

This technique is effective if the patient/client receives services from multiple practitioners on the same day. However, if the patient/client receives services from multiple practitioners across multiple days, it can be hard for the operator to tally up the value of the services (in steps 4 and 7). Capable 21C supports an Advanced Receipting feature that will facilitate this process.

To enable Advanced Receipting:

1. Go to Setup|Settings.
2. Select the Receipts tab.
3. Tick the checkbox to enable Advanced Receipting.
4. Close the Setup|Settings window and apply the changes.

Once Advanced Receipting is enabled, the invoice/receipt window will be noticeably larger, including a section showing historic visits that are unpaid. To process an invoice/receipt using Advanced Receipting, follow this procedure:

1. Open the receipt normally.
2. Ensure that all services for the visit are included on the receipt, and that the correct practitioner is nominated for each service. The practitioner nominated for the service can be altered by clicking on their name.
3. Tick the boxes for any previous visits that are to be paid.
4. Click the ‘Auto Transfer’ button to automatically move the correct payment details into the Receipt Payment lines.
5. Complete the invoice/receipt normally.

Detailed Information

Capable 21C also supports some additional features to assist with the ongoing balance of payments against each practitioner. These are:

• In Visits and Financials, there is a tickbox which, when checked, will display the visits and payments broken up by practitioner as well as by date.
• Under the Management Menu is a feature called Provider Balance Summary. The provider balance summary will display the number of patients/clients who have received payments against the wrong practitioner, and the amounts of variance. It also provides the ability to raise journal entries to balance the patient/client files.
• When the Provider Balance Summary is asked to correct the patient/client files, it will create two journal entries on each patient file in error. One journal will be a debit to remove the credit from the practitioner that has received it in error. The other journal will be a credit to add the credit to the practitioner who has not received it. The combination of the two journal entries will leave the patient/client file with the same overall balance, but it will move the credit from one practitioner to another.
• It is also possible to balance patient files by manually locating the visits and payments that have been recorded in error. However, manually locating and correcting the payments can be very time consuming. The provider balance summary produces almost instantaneous results.
• When prepayments are received, the credit is assigned to a single practitioner. If other practitioners render services to the patient/client, Capable 21C will not automatically move the credit across. The provider balance summary is an easy way to have Capable 21C automatically adjust the credit(s) so that each practitioner is in balance.
• The first time the Provider Balance Summary is used may result in large numbers of patient/client files that need to be corrected. Offices that rely heavily on practitioner collections to calculate payments for associates should use this tool to balance patient/client files regularly (eg weekly).
• For specific details about what the Provider Balance Summary tool will do, refer to the following documents that describe 25 case studies, and demonstrate specifically what journal entries the Provider Balance Summary tool will raise:
• www.capablesoftware.com.au/FAQs/KB-One Provider Case Studies.pdf
• www.capablesoftware.com.au/FAQs/KB-Two Provider Case Studies.pdf

Copyright 2008 Capable Software Pty Ltd

Training Sessions

Fundamentals Training Modules

Intermediate Training Modules

Advanced Training Modules

Other Resources

Return to Capable Software home

Contact Technical Support