Invoicing Patients: Part 6 of Systems4PT’s Guide to Patient Billing and Collections

Unfortunately, no matter how hard you try to collect patient fees at the time of service, you will have patient accounts that require sending an invoice. Invoicing patients is done by selecting “New Invoice” from the Corporate Reports Menu. “Invoice” on the Corporate Reports Menu is a more detailed statement and is usually only necessary for legal cases and by request from patients for their HSAs or taxes. This guide walks you through the task of patient invoicing in the Systems4PT interface.

You should be invoicing patients with outstanding balances at least monthly. If your front desk actively and efficiently checks in patients and collects the money displayed on the Patient Processing Screen—both Co-Pay and Self-Pay—then the patients requiring billing will be very manageable.

To determine who needs to be billed, utilize the Self-Pay Balances and Self-Pay Aging Reports. Always remember to run these reports as of the most current date to ensure you capture all recent payments. Additionally, cross-reference the accounts you plan to bill with the Patient Account Detail (PAD) found under your FOCUS menu.

From the home screen in Systems4PT, select Corporate Reports and then New Invoices. The default setting for this report creates an invoice for every patient with a current balance. However, you can select other filters depending on your specific purpose. For example, to generate an invoice for one patient, simply enter their Account Number or Last Name. If you have a large number of patient invoices, but only want to print a few at a time, you can limit the Account Number Range. Furthermore, while working on your refunds, select “yes” to include Credit Balance.

From this screen, you can create or edit the text of your Clinic Message that appears on every invoice. Your default message is an opportunity to thank the patient for choosing your clinic and advise them that payment is due upon receipt of the invoice. You will be able to modify this message on individual invoices, as needed when outstanding charges are moving through the collection cycle.

If you have any accounts that you do not want to print and send an invoice to, you can change the print status by selecting the “Edit Invoice Print Status” button. A list of all patients will appear, and you can change Print Status to “N” for the appropriate accounts. However, if you chose to suppress print status, it will be your responsibility to change it back to “Y” if you desire to create an invoice for that patient at a later date. Be very careful that you aren’t assuming a patient is receiving an invoice and not paying it when in actuality, you have suppressed the printing and are not sending the invoice to the patient.

After you select “Create”, a list of the patient invoices to print will be displayed. You’ll notice that it has aging buckets like your Self-Pay Aging Report. It also displays Patient Balance and Insurance Balance.

By the time you get to this point, you should have reviewed your self-pay balances, self-pay aging, and PAD reports and know what is going on with each account. You should know what stage of the collection process each account is at and be ready to change the Clinic Message text to the appropriate dunning notice. You can change this message by clicking on the row of the account you are interested in, selecting the “View Selected Invoice” button, and when the invoice appears on the screen, selecting the “Update Clinic Message” button. Type in your new message which will appear only on that account. See Part 7 – Systems4PT Dunning Process and suggested messages to learn more about this process.

Once you feel confident that you have made all the desired updates to the invoices, click “Print All Invoices.” This action will print the selected patient invoices, preparing them for mailing.

You can see that the process of reviewing, printing, and mailing patient invoices is cumbersome, time-consuming, and expensive. Therefore, it is essential to implement front desk protocols that collect patient fees at the time of service. This approach should include co-pays, self-pay, deductibles, and coinsurance

You can see that the process of reviewing, printing, and mailing patient invoices is cumbersome, time-consuming, and expensive. Therefore, it is essential to implement front desk protocols that collect patient fees at the time of service. This approach should include co-pays, self-pay, deductibles, and coinsurance. Collecting these fees from patients early reduces the chance of surprise billing, late payments, and lost revenue.

These are more detailed and usually only necessary for legal cases and by request from patients for their HSAs or taxes. To create a detailed invoice, select “Invoice” from the Corporate Reports Menu. Before opening this screen, make sure you know the account number for the account whose detailed invoice you want to print. You won’t be making any customizations of these reports. Follow the steps below.

If you would like a copy of this guide to invoicing patients to download for quick reference, please use the download button below to obtain a copy in PDF format. Check back for more Systems4PT guides and updates!