PracticeWorks Version 8 - How Line Item Accounting Works

[Anon]

In the last discussion I shared what line item accounting is. In this post I'm going to show you how it works. 

When line item accounting is activated a new screen appears when entering payments. The Payment Distribution window is where the magic happens. From this screen you apply, or distribute, payments to procedures.

The Amt to apply column allows you to assign credits to outstanding debits. In the example above we see the $50 CASH payment fully distributed to the Comprehensive Oral Exam.

Insurance payment distributions are completed on the enhanced Receive Insurance Payment screen. In addition to the Amt to apply column we have the Amt to write-off column.

In the example above, $5 is distributed to the Nitrous and $35 to the filling. $26 is written off ($6 for the Nitrous and $20 of the filling). When complete, the $40 insurance payment and a $26 write off (using the DELTAWO code) are posted to the ledger. 

For a detailed walk-through  of payment distributions download the attached PDF's. 

In the next discussion I'll talk about why an office would want to use line item accounting.
 

If you'd like to continue the discussion please leave a comment. I look forward to hearing from you. 

[knowicki]

There is also training content related to this topic in the PracticeWorks catalog of the Carestream Dental Institute (CDI) .

www.carestreamdental.com/cdi

If you haven't visited the CDI before, you'll need to register. 

[sonyap]

I just reviewed it and don't see anywhere that it explains why write-offs go to account and not to the patient whose claim you just distributed payments & write-offs for.

[Anon]

@sonyap my apologies for the delay.

When using Line Item Accounting the write off has an explicit connection to the procedures to which it is applied to.

You can see this after you post and distribute the write off by right clicking on it and selecting View/Edit Distribution. The Distribution screen shows you which procedures, and by extension which patients, the write off was applied to. 

[knowicki]

@jdowner  @Anon - can you please address this question? Thanks so much. 

[sonyap]

Why do write offs always post to "Account" instead of the patient that they are specifically for?

[jdowner]

As far as I can tell, it is just how it was designed by the developers. 

It shouldn't cause any issues on reporting and Distributing payments. The important part of the write off is which producer code it's assigned to. 

[dianeyoung]

When a patient would like to know what balance belongs to what patient on his or her account, what is the fastest way to do that? Especially if there are 4-5 on the same account.

[Anon]

dianeyoung‌

Currently there are no specifically designed patient facing reports available with Line Item accounting.

That said, it would be possible to print the Unpaid Production report for a specific patient. 

In the tutorial database we have Amy and Kyle Tapp. Amy is the responsible party. I've created outstanding balance for each of them. 

If I run the Unpaid Production with details for Kyle I see this:

To find the unpaid portion of Amy's balance I rerun the report, selecting Amy, and get these results:

The only other option would be viewing the distributions directly, a process that could take much longer than running the Unpaid Production report several times. 

We've discussed incorporating patient facing reporting with Line Item accounting in a future version. As you can see the data is there; it's just a matter of determining what would provide you and other LIA PracticeWorks users the most value. 

I would love to hear your ideas on what we can do in the way of patient balance reporting.