Can "Ins Due" have a negative balance?

[jpisariktnosi]

Is there a way to put a negative balance in the insurance due area? We often have over-payments and it would be helpful to know just by looking at the account if the refund is due to the patient or the insurance.

Thanks! I'm on version 8.11

[matt_ackerman · Accepted solution]

While the software allows you to "over-apply" payments to line items, you cannot end up with a negative (credit) balance on a charge that indicates "insurance due."  

I've tinkered a little bit with how the payments post, and also how the charge can be edited in the ledger, and i can't get the credit amount to stay marked as the insurance due. Selecting "no action" on the last page of the payment wizard will still transfer the credit balance to the patient.

In the test case i used, above, i changed the "Xfer Bal to Patient" to "no Action" and it still moved the over-applied amount to Patient Due.  I then edited the charge and manually changed the patient due amount to $0.00, and the insurance due amount to $15.90, and it would not actually save the change.

Perhaps this is because I only had one insurance on the account and the charges had no "remaining policies to bill?"  I'm not sure that would change anything, but it doesn't help in this case.

[jpisariktnosi]

Correct, I've never been able to get a negative balance there (either moving it by line item on the posting, or moving the monies around later). I guess I was asking that more as a suggestion for a future update.

[omsnashville]

We have never found a way to show a negative insurance balance, either, as you stated. We just notate it heavily in the Contact Notes and may even put an Alert so that it does not get accidentally refunded to the patient while we process the insurance overpayment (and have them issue a formal request, so we know the money goes where it's supposed to after we cut the check).

[jpisariktnosi]

Yep, that's our method, too. And we leave the accounts as "insurance pending" if we're waiting for a refund request (which can take months- or years- depending on the insurance!).