Apply a payment from an insurance company

When an insurance company pays a Direct Bill in part or in full, you need to record this payment in Visual Practice in order for your accounts receivables to remain accurate. When an insurance company makes a payment, you record it through the Insurance Payment Form located under the Form Button

on the toolbar as shown below:

Once this option is selected the Patient Payment Form will appear. To begin recording the payment, click on the New Button

on the toolbar, and the form will be ready to accept input as shown below:

By clicking on the Patient Lookup Button

you can select the patient for which you wish to record a payment. You can then use the Insurance Company Lookup Button to list all Insurance Companies for which this patient has an outstanding balance. Select the insurance company for which you wish to make the payment for. Finally, you need to use the Claim # Lookup Button to list all outstanding debts made against a particular claim under the insurance company selected. If more than one bill is outstanding, it will be listed in the grid, and you can break down the payment across multiple claims, or only make payment on specific claims. As with patient payments, you may specify Paid By and Reference #'s as well.

When recording the actual payment against a bill for a claim, you can specify the amount paid in the $ Paid column. The % Payable shows what percentage of the bill the insurance company paid, and the $ Disallow shows the balance outstanding after the payment. In many instances, insurance companies have a deductible expressed as a percentage of the total claim. The provider can optionally write off the remaining amount, continue to pursue the insurance company if the payment isn't consistent with the policy, or transfer the outstanding balance to the patient. The Status column enables you to specify how you want to handle the remaining outstanding balance. By specifying the values listed below, you can perform the action specified against the remaining balance:

Value Specified	Action it Performs
Blank	Do not act further on the outstanding balance and leave it open for further payments
P	Transfer the balance remaining from the Insurance Company account to the Patient Account. This action creates a negative entry on the original invoice reversing the remaining balance, and generates a new patient invoice, billing the patient for the remaining amount. The invoice line indicates the invoice the balance was transferred from.
X	Write of the balance, do not pursue the insurance company or the patient for the remaining outstanding amount.