Overview
This article will cover how to add charges to a patient's account for the purpose of recording payments for products and/or services rendered. Once a charge is in your master charge list, you will be able to add charges to a patient's account both from within an encounter note and from the yellow Billing block on the patient's chart.
Related Articles
- Add to or Edit Charge List
- Chart Parts
- Add and Allocate Payments and Credits
- Inventory Resources
- Charges - Added Check
- Add Discounts
- Apply Discount to Multiple Charges
Details
There are three ways you can add a Charge to a Patient's Account, two from within a SOAP Note, and the other from the billing block on the patient's chart.
To get to the charges, you can hover over the plus icon in the Charges/Payments block in an open SOAP note (pictured below). From there, you can click on the "+ Add Charge" button to bring up a small window to search for charges in your Charge List. Once you start typing in the search box, the system will recommend charges that match the name you've just typed. To select the relevant charge, click on its name. This is the recommended way to add charges that are associated with a patient visit.
This is probably the most straight forward of the three options, first hover over the yellow Billing block on the patient's dashboard/chart view and press the plus sign, then searching for the charge in your Charge List using the search bar on the left (pictured below).
By pulling up a Chart Part template that has the charge associated, then clicking on the charge in the Suggested Actions that appear above the yellow SOAP note Assessment block to add it to the note. (Pictured below)
(pictured: Charges populating (with use of a chart part) as suggestions on the top right corner of the SOAP note window, and an example of the option to add the charge to the Patient's account).
Regardless of which option you chose, when you select +Add to Charges the following window will pop up. The following section will cover what each field means and how they affect the overall charge. The information in parentheses is explain how to interact with that field.
(pictured: The add charge to patient's chart interface, featuring all the different ways you can modify charges).
- Base Charge (dollar amount)- The dollar amount that is associated with this charge on your master charge list
- Notes (notes field) - administrative notes about the charge. These are viewable in the patient's billing history and by hovering over a charge entry in the Billing block. However, the information in this field is not visible to patients.
- Discount (button, drop-down) - press the blue "+Discount" button to add a discount. A drop down menu will appear listing all of the discounts you have loaded into your system. Discounts must be created in Admin >> Manage >> Discounts before being used in a patient's chart.
- Billing Code(s) and Modifiers (number) - charges may have one or multiple billing codes and modifiers.
- Example - Pictured below is how one would use multiple billing codes, as well as a modifier
- Example - Pictured below is how one would use multiple billing codes, as well as a modifier
- Add to Insurance Invoice (checkbox)- indicates whether the charge is potentially insurance-reimbursable, and therefore should appear on any insurance invoices that are generated for the encounter. If your build has the ability to delineate insurance and patient responsibility for charges, fields to specify the two will appear if Add to Insurance Invoice is checked.
- +Add Charge (button) - Pressing this button will add the charge to the patient's chart and close the interface
- +Add and Add Another (button) - Pressing this button will add the charge to the patient's chart and allow you to add another charge
- +Add and Add Payment (button) - Pressing this button will add the charge to the patient's chart and open a new window to process a payment
If the wrong charge was selected by accident, you can return to the Add Charge search bar by clicking on the replace icon (the green and red arrows) to the left of the charge name.
If the charge is associated with an item that you carry in your inventory, you will additionally see radio buttons to toggle between Dispense from Inventory and Do not Dispense. Once the charge is added to the patient's account, the account balance is adjusted accordingly. The charge will also appear on any relevant account statements, insurance invoices (if the "Add to Insurance Invoice" box was checked), receipts, etc.
Additional Keywords: charges, add charges, payment, charge for services, charge patient