Merging accounts that both have financial transactions associated with them is a very manual process. Claims have to be voided, re-entered, and payments have to be reversed and reposted.
We advise keeping the account with the oldest dates of service or the account with the most history. The process involves moving all charges and payments to the account that you plan to keep. Once you move the charges, you will void the charges on the account you plan to Delete and notate both accounts. I would recommend scheduling a call if you are not familiar with voiding charges or reversing payments.
See the steps below to delete a duplicate patient. Whichever account has the least amount of outstanding claims can be deleted after they have completed processing. Then, you can adjust any remaining balance and add that to the account that is staying active.
Deleting a duplicate patient record:
NOTE: Add note referencing the deleted patient account number on the account that will not be deleted for future reference.
1. Go to the Patient Info screen for the account you want to delete.
2. On the tool bar across the top of the patient demo click the X (delete) button
3. You will get a pop up box confirming your request, click Yes to delete the patient demographic information.
***NOTE: If the patient has outstanding balances or open patient payments the patient demo cannot be deleted. The patient must have a zero balance on claims and all patient payments must be posted or refunded.
The SSN field in the Patient Demographics page will prevent this from occurring in the future. The system maps patients by their SSN first, then looks at name and DOB to rule out duplicate a/c. Under Settings > Account, there is an option to keep the SSN off of the encounter form, but would still use the SSN to search for a patient in the system.