Denticon is programmed to help streamline the office’s daily patient payment entries, and handles of all the financial stress for the office staff.
These basic concepts of patient payments and their allocation are important to remember.
- Money received from the patient and/or Responsible Party
- Patient payments are allocated to any outstanding procedure, regardless of provider
- "Allocated" means that patient(s) and/or insurance carrier(s) have paid for completed treatment, for which the payment is able to be applied (allocated) to the particular provider who is associated with the procedure.
- Patient-received pre-payment(s) is held in in the account's unallocated portion until a procedure is completed that needs a portion of the pre-payment.
- Denticon does not allocate patient-received payment amounts until a procedure has been completed that needs a patient-side payment.
- "Unallocated" means that patient(s) have pre-paid for treatment that has not yet been charged as completed. An unallocated payment is a payment that exceeds the current patient amount due. As a result of the pre-payment, the payment is held in in the unallocated portion until a procedure is completed that needs a portion of the pre-payment. Denticon does not allocate payment amounts until a procedure has been completed that needs a patient payment.
- Standard accounting practice in which the oldest (first) procedure is paid first
- Denticon is programmed to pay (in order) the oldest known procedure, for most outstanding treating provider, for most outstanding patient record,
- Unless the user explicitly selects a specific transaction (aka: procedure and/or patient) to which a patient payment is allocated, the system allocates to the oldest transaction with an unallocated patient portion
- The provider who receives "credit" for the payment. The "Transaction Provider" can change to the "Allocation Provider" once a procedure is rendered.
- The location in which the procedure was performed (aka: posted to the Ledger) toward which the payment was allocated
- The Allocation Office is in no way dependent on the payment office
- In Denticon's default "First In, First Out" (FIFO) programming, a payment is simply applied to the oldest outstanding procedure or a debit adjustment
- The date when a payment is allocated to a procedure
- The date is always the Created Date of the transaction which caused the allocation to be applied
- Even though the system allows a user to modify the transaction date, the date of service, or the payment date, the allocation date is hard-programmed to be the creation date
- The hard-programmed creation date is for data integrity. Example: if a user back dates a payment, the system will allocate that payment as if it was dated today
- The system does not reallocate all the allocations because of a back dated transaction
- Typically the allocation date is when a payment is collected
- Most of the time, there is a balance on the account at the time of the payment collection, toward which the appropriate amount of the payment may be allocated to the past procedure
When a patient pre-pays for treatment, the payment will temporarily default to the patient's preferred dentist provider. The key concept within Denticon’s programming is that the patient-received payment should always be "apply to Responsible Party." By doing so, Denticon will automatically allocate the payment to the provider who should be paid for completed treatment.
Example:
- patient has a current $0 balance with no completed procedures
- patient's preferred provider = Dr Jones
- patient pays $1000 today
- patient current credit balance is $1000, temporarily "allocating" to Dr Jones
Patient visits the office, and has a completed procedure:
- procedure's estimated patient portion of the overall fee = $200
- procedure treating provider = Dr Smith
- provided that the payment is entered as "apply to Responsible Party," the $1000 pre-payment will automatically allocate $200 to Dr Smith
- the remaining $800 credit balance will be unallocated until additional procedures are posted for which there is a patient-side balance due
Patient visits the office again, this time for a hygiene appointment for which there is no patient-side balance due:
- procedure fee = $100
- no "estimated patient" portion due
- no reallocation of the pre-payment
- the remaining $800 credit balance will be unallocated until additional procedures are posted for which there is a patient-side balance due
Patient visits again, for dentistry treatment:
- procedures estimated patient portion of the overall fee = $900
- procedure treating provider = Dr Miller
- provided that the payment is entered as "apply to Responsible Party," the remaining $800 credit balance of the original $1000 pre-payment will automatically be unallocated to Dr Miller
- the patient's balance due is $100
- the patient pays $100 upon this visit’s completion
- the additional $100 payment automatically allocates directly to Dr Miller in order pay the remaining patient-side balance due
If the original $1000 payment was "intended" to pay Dr Miller, Denticon has very easily and efficiently handled all that for the office, automatically taking care of each provider’s completed treatment along the way which has a patient-side balance due.