The new year is right around the corner, and with that comes the need to perform the benefits reset and benefit recalculation utilities.
These can be and should be, run whenever the office has insurance companies that have passed their yearly benefits reset. This means it can be the first of any month throughout the year depending on your needs since not all insurance companies reset their benefits on the same schedule. The utilities need to be run on or after the reset date.
When the utilities are being run the Benefit reset needs to be run first, followed by the Benefit recalculation utility. The steps to run both are below.
Benefits reset
Resetting benefits looks at the Employer/Plan's renewal date and resets benefits for all patients linked to the plans that have renewal dates since the utility was last run and current date.
The "Renewal date" in PracticeWorks must be entered in a four-digit "month-day" format (mm-dd). The software will not accept a numeric entry for a year because the insurance policy should be renewed every year, not just during one year.
- Click File > Maintenance > Reset benefits.
- Click Yes if a good backup exists.
- A "Resetting Benefits" window will appear. When the red progress bar completes, the reset has been accomplished.
Benefits recalculator
This utility recalculates the year-to-date insurance benefits used, the individual deductible remaining, and the family deductible remaining on each patient's Clipboard.
-
Be sure you have a current backup before running this utility.
To recalculate benefits:
-
Click the Benefits Recalculation icon.
-
Answer the question.
-
Click Yes to continue. If you have a large number of patients and a slow computer, please allow a few minutes for the recalculation to complete.
-
Click No to exit the window.
