Auto-Collect Statement and Pre-Collections Setup and Instructions
ProviderSuite Statements have a number of settings that can be set by the practice manager to customize the statement process and statement cycles.
You can set up different cycles for insurance and patient balance claims, and in each instance, there is a setting for the number of days before sending the first statement, and then a setting for the number of days between each statement (the statement cycle). Note that if any claim has a patient balance, then all statements will follow the patient cycle and other patient statement rules.
2. Statement Balances
By default, statements will be sent for any outstanding insurance or patient balance. No statements will go for workers comp, industrial account or Medicaid claims unless one of those claim balances becomes a patient balance. If you prefer, you can set the system to only send statements for patient balances, and if you do this, you can then also set it to only send statements for patient balances over a certain amount.
3. Credit Balances
The default setting is to not send statements if any portion of a claim has a credit balance. If you prefer, you can turn this function off.
How this works: When Practice Manager identifies a credit balance, it will automatically set the flag on the patient account to “Hold statements – Patient Due Refund”. If you would still like a patient to receive a statement you can go to the patient form, and uncheck the box that sets this flag, which will allow the next statement to go out – however, if another payment is posted before the statement is sent, the flag will get reset to hold statements.
4. Days of the week to send Statements
You can select any combination of days of the week on which you would like to send patient statements. Statement data is created early in the morning and is transmitted to the mail house at the beginning of the business day.
5. Credit Cards Accepted
Indicate which credit cards your practice can accept
There is an option to age accounts by patient balances only (this is the default, and recommended, setting) or to also age Insurance balance claims. This setting is used to determine the appropriate dunning message to send on statements, and also for flagging past due accounts.
7. Dunning messages
PA provides a range of short messages that you can choose from, which will be appended to statements as “dunning messages”. You can select messages for each of insurance or patient balance statement types, for each or any of the aging brackets of up to 30, over 30, over 60, and over 90 days. These would then be selected according to the age of the oldest claim in the account that is relevant to the type of statement. For example, if the practice uses the default of aging for patient balances only, then the dunning message on statements will be appropriate for the age of the patient balance, and will not be affected by any older insurance claims. Select from the list at the end of this document.
8. Past Due Accounts
You can set the default age of account before it gets flagged as Past Due. The default on this is to age from the date that a patient becomes a debtor on a claim. However, there is an option for the practice to also age Insurance balance claims if preferred.
The Past Due Date will then be used to flag the account as Past Due, which would list it on the Past Due Accounts report. In addition, if Auto-Collect is turned on, it would then flag the account for Pre-Collections, and start sending Pre-Collection letters next.
9. Pre-Collection letters (link to letter verbiage)
The first option for Pre-Collection letters is whether to use the Practice Manager “Auto-Collect” function or not (default is on). If this is turned on, then patient statements will switch over to Pre-Collection letters when the Past Due Date on their account is reached, and the account will be flagged as a Pre-Collection account. If you have not chosen to use Auto-Collect, the account will be flagged as Past Due, and then you will be able to turn it to Pre-Collections manually using the checkbox on the statement tab on the patient form.
You can then select how may Pre-Collection letters to send (default is 1) when your maximum number of letters is reached, then the patient account will be flagged as Pre-Collections completed, and the patient will show on the Pre-Collections completed report. PA has a number of standard Pre-Collection letters that you can choose from and designate for each of the number of letters you choose to send. In addition, you can determine the cycle of how frequently to send these letters.
10. Final Notice (link to letter verbiage)
Select a letter to send as your Final Notice – this is sent out when the account is flagged for collections – as long as statements are not on hold. PA then tracks the date that this is sent, and will not compile an account into a collections file until the “grace period” that you select has passed. The PA default on this setting is 15 days.
How the statement process works-
When claims are released, our statement engine runs to set up the account according to the set of practice rules. Similarly, when payments are processed, this same engine gives the account another work over to update the statement and patient flags.
On the patient form Statement tab, the first section shows the date that the next statement is due to be sent, the statement type (Insurance, Patient, Pre-Collection, Final Notice), and the date that this account will become Past Due. In addition, it shows the text of the dunning message that is set to go on the next statement.
Lastly, there is a force next statement checkbox that will allow you to bring the statement due date forward to the current date – this will also run the statement engine to change any settings that could be affected by the statement going on what is now a new date.