Executive Summary

New Features and Updates

Introducing Our New Payment Plans Feature

We are pleased to introduce our new Payment Plan option to collect patient payments.  Payment Plans allow patients to make arrangements to pay off high outstanding balances over an extended period of time. Placing a patient on a payment plan may considerably enhance the likelihood of the bill being paid, due to the ease of charging an agreed-upon amount each billing cycle until the full balance is paid.                    

Getting started is easy once your practice administrator has set up the required roles in the setup portal. Once granted access, users can begin using the payment plans feature by following these steps:     

Configure Company Settings 

1. Payment Plan - Max. Payment Plan Dollar Amount: Determines the payment plan's total maximum dollar amount allowed. If your practice does not wish to implement a maximum dollar amount for payment plans, this setting should remain 0 = Disabled.
2. Payment Plan - Min. Payment Plan Dollar Amount: Determines the payment plan's minimum dollar amount allowed. If your practice does not wish to implement a minimum dollar amount for payment plans, this setting should remain 0 = Disabled.
3. Payment Plan - Max. Installments Months: Determines the payment plan's maximum number of months that the installment payments can be configured for. This setting will look at the payment plan installment Start and End Date to determine if it's allowed or not.
4. Payment Plan - Min. Installments Months: Determines the payment plan's minimum number of months that installment payments can be configured for. This setting will look at the payment plan installment Start and End Date to determine if it's allowed or not. 
5. Payment Plan - Allow Recurring Payments: Determines if recurring payments are allowed for payment plans. When turned on, this company setting will allow recurring payments for payment plans.
6. Payment Plan - Minimum last payment: Determines the minimum payment allowed as the last installment payment. If the amount for the last installment payment is less than this value, the amount will automatically be added to the first payment instead. 

For more information on these settings, visit our Payment Plan Setup Setup document.

Navigating Your Payment Plan Screen is easy 

The Payment Plan screen can be found in the Billing portal under the Payment Plan category on the navigation bar. 

This screen by default will display all payment plans that currently exist in any status. In addition, the screen allows you to perform a number of additional tasks including searching, reporting, making changes, and opening existing payment plans. Here are some of the payment plan screen fields.

1. ID: The payment plan ID number.
2. Status: The current status of the payment plan.
3. Installment Total: The total number of installments of the payment plan.
4. Plan Total: The adjusted plan total of the payment plan.
5. Installments: The installment amount for each payment on the payment plan.
6. Advanced Search: Used to open the payment plan advanced search window.
   1. The Advanced Search feature allows for the most complicated and specific types of searches.  By clicking the Advanced Search button, a panel with search criteria will be displayed on the left-hand side of the screen.  Select the pertinent criteria, then click the Search button on the panel. 

For a complete list of fields or more information on the Payment Plan or Advanced Search windows, click here.

Creating Payment Plans

Creating a payment plan can be done by selecting the "New" button at the top of the payment plan screen. 

Once your patient is selected, the New Payment Plan window will be displayed. 

This window includes 4 sections:

Existing Payment Plans - This section allows users to view any current payment plans the patient already has in place.

1. Patient Balance Claims - This section displays any outstanding patient claim balances and allows you to choose which claims or balances you wish to associate with the payment plan. It includes checkboxes to the left of the existing balances used to select the claims you want to include in your payment plan.
2. Payment Plan Details - This section allows users to set up a new payment plan by entering their payment plan details (installment amounts, number of installments, dates, recurring payments, etc.).
3. Payment Plan Installment Summary - This section will appear after the payment plan is created and displays the payment plan's installment number, due date, and payment amounts. 

Once you've entered all your payment plan details, you can add a patient credit card on file by selecting the "Add Card" option at the bottom of the screen. This will link the card to the payment plan allowing it to be used for recurring or manual processing. Otherwise, you can click "Save" to save the payment plan. 

Additional Payment Plan Actions

Once you have set up a payment plan, you may find that some edits or updates need to be made to the existing plan. There are several actions you can take on the existing payment plans from the Payment Plan Details Screen. 

To get to the Payment Plan Details Screen, highlight the desired payment plan from the list and select the "Open" button at the top of the payment plan screen. Alternatively, you can double-click the payment plan from the list to open it.

Once you select your payment plan, the Payment Plan Details window will appear, containing buttons under the Detail Actions section.

Within the Detail Actions section, you can choose the preferred action from the options provided.

1. Update Plan: The Update Payment Plan screen allows you to apply any desired edits or updates to the payment plan.
   1. Enter any applicable write-off or adjustment.
   2. Edit the total amount due.
   3. Edit the installment amount.
   4. Edit the number of installments.
   5. Enter any payment plan comments.
   6. Select any payment plan flag(s)
      1. Recurring Payment: This will flag the payment plan for the recurring payment process.
      2. Exclude claims from statements: This will exclude the selected claims from being included in the patient’s statement.
      3. Do not send statements: This will set the Do Not Send Patient Statement flag for the patient while the payment plan is in Active Status. 
2. Update Status: The Payment Plan Status screen allows you to update your payment plan's status from a list of options.
   1. Active: The Payment Plan is active with expected payment amounts and dates.
   2. Cancelled: The payment plan has been canceled.
   3. Completed: The entire payment plan balance was paid in full and no remaining balance exists.
   4. On Hold: The payment plan is in a hold state.
   5. Past Due: The payment plan has an installment that has been deemed past due. 
3. Resp. Party: The Change Responsible Party screen allows you to update the responsible party from a list of options (if available). 
4. Deferment: The Defer Payment Plan screen allows you to delay or "defer" a payment until a future date.
5. Add Card: The Add Credit Card screen allows you to save a new or existing patient credit card and associate it with the payment plan for recurring and/or manual processing.

More Options

Choosing the "More" option at the top of the Payment Plan window presents the user with the following alternatives.

1. Change Display Settings: The Change Display Settings option allows a user to determine exactly which data points are displayed in the Results Grid.  You can also determine the Maximum number of rows that are returned for payment plans. 
2. Process Non-Recurring Payments: The Process Non-Recurring Payments option will open a window that lets a user process a payment for a balance that is not included as part of the payment plan. 
3. Payment Plan Payments Report: The Payment Plan Payments Report option will allow the user to run a report on failed recurring payments for payment plans by a specific date range.

iScheduler

Quick Pay 

• U15600 - Payment Plans - Option Added to The Quick Pay Window: In the Quick Pay window, we've added a new option that allows users to either select an existing payment plan to link the payment to, or create a new payment plan. 

Billing

Revenue Cycle Wheel

• U16371 - Add Past Due Payment Plans to the Revenue Cycle wheel: Updated the "Post" section of the revenue cycle wheel to include past due Payment Plans. This will display the total of Past Due Payment Plans, either as a dollar amount or payment plan count, depending on the user view selection. When the user clicks the drill-down option, it will link to the Payment Plan window, displaying the Past Due Payment Plans. 

Payment Posting 

• U15601 - Payment Plans - Option Added to The Credit Card Payment Window:  Within the Credit Card Payment window, we included a new option to select an existing payment plan or add a new one. This allows users to choose an existing payment plan or click "New" to create a new payment plan directly from the Credit Card Payment window.For more information on associating or adding a payment plan from the credit card window click here.

Deposits 

• U10763 - New Option To Enter Remark Codes On EOB Deposits: Added an option for users to enter Remark codes (RARC) on manual EOB deposit claims.  Within the Deposit Claims (Billing > Deposits) we have a new section that shows any existing remarks and a + button that enables users to edit or add new remarks. 

Bug Fixes

iScheduler

Appointments

• B18502 - Missing Appointment Reminder History: Corrected an issue within appointments where right-clicking and selecting the Global Call Reminders option did not display any appointment reminder history in certain scenarios. This was due to a lag in the reminder history retrieval process from Updox. To resolve this, we have implemented a 10-minute delay in our retrieval process, allowing Updox sufficient time to complete the processing of the reminder history before we attempt to retrieve it.