BILLING MODULE 2011 – HEALTH one Version 7.1
We have developed a completely new billing module for versions 7.x. You will be able to continue using the old billing module in version 7.x if you wish but we strongly encourage you to convert your old bills
The biggest changes in the new module are:
- The bills (now called invoices) are saved in the patient file (HCR). Thus if you rebuild the patient indexes, you get all the bills back – if for example your database became corrupt
- All payments are made against specific invoices –easier to track costs and payments
- Billing and payments can be done directly from appointments screen – no need for secretary to open the patient’s file.
- Very easy and comprehensive analysis by patient and by family and by third party
- Simple reporting on daily analysis – open bills – breakdown by doctor, by company etc.
We can break the Billing Module section down into different sections.
- Bills Creation
- Billing Item Editor
- Billing Tab, Filter and Display
- Configuring Cost Items, and Debtors
- Conversion from old Billing Module
- Family and Debtor Bills
- New Invoices
- Payments
- Population Analyisis
- User Access and User Configuration
Bills Creation.
Creating a Bill
There are several possibilities to create a bill:
- From the patient file, a button + shortcut Shift+F9 ⇒ display the billing item editor
- Insert the item from the item selector (new item = invoice) ⇒display the billing item editor
- Directly from the billing tab in the patient file.
Other possibilities (without opening the patient file):
- from the patient in the Patient Selector Screen Right click – New invoice.
- from Appointment Screen – Right click + button ⇒New invoice.
from patient selector and appointment selector=> this displays the billing tab with all open bills for the patient NB: Today’s bill is selected by default.
Two buttons on the billing tab:
- New invoice (display the billing item editor)
- New payment (displays the payment editor)
NB: If there are no open bills – the new payment button is disabled.
New Invoices
Creating New Invoices
- The Billing searches for a transaction for the responsible doctor and the transaction date. The choice is displayed at the bottom of the dialog.
- Two options:
- Create the invoice in existing transaction of today’s date. NB: If the existing transaction does not exist, the choice is disabled.
- Create in new transaction
- name = billing
- responsible = responsible of billing
- author = logged in user
NB: We have an option to default to new transaction. Any new transaction has a specific transaction name = “invoicing”
Billing tab filter and display.
How the Billing tab can filter bills and display them
The list of bills contains several columns:
Filter
- Displays open bills or all bills (A specific drop down menu filter allows us to filter the bills on several criteria: open / closed / cancelled / all bills.
- Several filters are available by column (above the main grid):
- Filter by date (period of time are allowed (<01/10/2010, <2010, >06/2010, >2009 <2010, )
- Description
- Cost & Paid (expressions like >100, <10 are allowed)
- Filter by responsible. (List of users available in a drop down filter).
- Debtor filter.
Display
- Open bills are highlighted in yellow
- Bills belonging to doctors other than the logged on user are displayed in red.
Billing item editor
How to use the Billing Item Editor
- Date – initialized with the transaction date but can be modified.
- Responsible (combo that contains all users).
We have a tag in the user database to exclude any user from the list: ( Highlight the user name – information tab – identifier view – billing denied (4th from bottom in the list) = 1.) Initialized with the logged in user provided it is in the list. (otherwise remains blank and warning if not filled in)
- If initiated from the appointments, the responsible will be the GP with whom the appointment is made.
- Invoice editor has three parts “invoiced” input the invoice (bill) here.
- We have a grid with 3 columns “Code or Alias” | “Description” | “Price”
- The first column allows you to search on the code
- The second column allows you to search on the description (space in search criteria allowed).
We have a selector from an external database. Costs are searched directly from the grid.
The doctor can change the list of billing items or debtors in the config. The cost is freely modifiable – the doctor should be able to ask the price he wants.
Several costs can be added in the grid. The total is calculated automatically.
A full description of the invoice is generated and modifiable (this is the caption that will be put on the bills, printing etc.) e.g. Consultation + ECG
- A comment in free text
- Debtor : 3 possibilities. This is initialized with last invoice for this patient in the HCR.
Patient (default if no previous bills except for child <18 è family.)- Family : query with the family number to initialize a combo. We have a button to select a family head from the “mini” patient selector. NB: An asterix after the family number denotes family head
- Company : List initialized from an external database. (CompanyName, Adress1, Adress2, Adress3, ContactPerson).
- Payments : List of payment (grid) – Amount paid, payment type (cash, cheque, credit card, other…), comment.
To mark a bill as paid directly, we have buttons – cash, cheque, credit card to initialize the payment with the total cost.
- Status – closed bill. This is editable.
- Receipt – a check box is added to print a receipt when you validate the dialog.
Notes: only one debtor is possible for one invoice - If multiple create multiple bills. the address of the debtor (company) is saved in the database to be able to print.
Layout of the billing editor.
Payment dialog.
How to manage Payments in the Billing Module
The Payment Dialogue demonstrates the following:
- Date (today’s date)
- Amount: initialized with the selected open bills total. Focus on the amount.
We take care of any negative balance to reduce the amount to pay. In this case, add a comment.
- Type of payment : cash, cheque, credit card, or other
- Comment
=> The payment is split between all open bill starting with the selected ones and then with the latest invoices.
NB: A small calculator is available in the amount field
Population Analysis (Billing Queries)
Analysis of Practice income
The Practice income can be analysed through ‘Billing Queries’ This is extremely useful when assessing the income being generated. Analysis can include Billing Items, ie: ECG / Bloods etc or can include individual practitioners
Execute the analysis
This is different from the old billing. It is not accessed from the normal population analysis button. We have a separate “billing queries” button on the main Health One toolbar
But also directly from the invoice list in the billing tab or elsewhere
Analysis content
- End of day analysis. Shows the total invoiced and the total paid + open bills for the day. (Day is the default, but can be done for any period) You should be able to print invoices for the day.
- List of invoices for today, list of open bills of today, list of income.
- Presents some cube analyses.
Conversion from old billing
How to Convert your HealthOne if you still have the old Billing Module
When you upgrade, you can continue to use the old billing. To convert you must first initialise the new billing
Click Menu item Tools ⇒ options ⇒ billing ⇒ Activate new Module
When the new billing is activated the conversion is not done automatically. You have click on the convert icon either in the billing tab or in the billing queries screen.
We strongly suggest you leave the default options ticked as opposite.
Conversion into a unique invoice transaction will take about 15 mins. for 50,000 billing records. This will create one transaction at the beginning of the medical chapter with all old bills converted. However each bill will still have the same date as in the old module.
Conversion in a separate invoice transaction will create a new transaction for every old bill. This is much slower and may take over an hour for 50,000 billing records
Conversion of each bill to the most appropriate transaction is slower still and may take several hours for 50,000 billing records
Family Billing
Using Family and Debtor Billing
It is possible to make the head of family the “Debtor” for an invoice e.g. for children.
In the invoice editor this is assigned with the “family” entry box
You can use the little box next to the drop down list to select the head of family.
However, if you have already assigned the same family number to all members of the family, the drop down list will display these family members. You can then select the appropriate family member as “head of family”.
Bills can then be sent for all members to the family head. Once you have selected the “family head” for this patient, Health one will remember it and it will appear in the drop down list the next time you invoice this patient.
If you use family numbers to identify several patients of the same family, you can define the family head in the patient file (in the administrative transaction) by adding an asterix * after the family number in the file of the family head. If you use this system Health one will immediately find the family head for, say a child, and present you with this name when you create an invoice for the child.
Configuring the cost items and Debtors
How to configure your ‘Cost Items’ and ‘Debtors’
Normally the cost items and Debtors will be converted from the old module. You can create new billing items at several places in the billing module
Configure cost items or debtors from billing tab Configure cost items or debtors from Queries screen
Configure cost items from invoice editor Configure debtors (companies) from Invoice editor
The configuration database for the billing module (billing.mdb) is stored in the dbf folder.
Health one will look for this database in the DBF folder using the following order
- Shared config/CONFIG/SET1/DBF
- Shared config\DBF
- C:\Honewin\DBF
The specific editor allows you to:
- Add, edit, delete a cost item
- Review the sort order of the items
- Define a default cost item. (e.g. consultation)
- Add, edit, delete a company
- Review the sort order of the companies
Configuring User Access to the billing module – User editor
User Access and configuration
It is possible to allow or deny the following access rights to the billing module for different users. This is important because the analyses are very powerful and easy to view from within Health one for any user.
You have to open the “User editor” or UserDB to assign these access rights. Only administrators have access to the user editor itself.
- Disallow some users the right to view the billing analysis – disable the analysis icon. In this case the highlighted user will not be able to see the analysis icon in the main Health one toolbar
In the user editor, click on the relevant user – Click on the “access rights” tab on the right – click the “new” button – choose the object = Bill – choose the Action – Analyses – un-tick the box = “Grant”.
There are several other access rights available in the “Object” section
- Disallow some users the right to create an invoice in their own name. – For example, usually the reception staff/secretaries should not create an invoice or payment in their own name
In the user editor, click on the relevant user – Click on the “Information” tab on the right – click the “views” drop down list and change the view from “defined” to “identifier”. At the bottom (4th from last) of this list is the field called “billing denied”. Put the number one – 1 – in the box next door. This user’s name will not now appear in the list of users when creating a new invoice/payment
