Overview

You can invoice a group or corporate account for patients' subscriptions and/ or specific charges. This is most commonly used by DPC practices that have a relationship with an employer group to provide services to their employees. 


To charge the group/ corporate account using your integrated merchant services account (Bluefin or Stripe), you would use a "dummy" patient chart. If you have Bluefin, you can even have participating patients' subscriptions automatically charged to the group's dummy patient account.


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Details

Adding a Group Account under Admin > Manage

Optional - you would do this if you want to have a custom new patient registration form for participating patients in your employer/ group to register. If desired, you can set up the employer group under Admin > Manage > Group/ Corporate Accounts.


If you do not need a custom new patient registration form for participants to sign up with you via the group, then you can skip this step. Instead, you might just add a dummy patient account for the group/ employer (see below).


Monthly Subscription Per Patient Covered by Group

In the "Invoicing Rules" section, under Monthly Subscription, you can set a per-participant Monthly Subscription fee that would be manually-invoiced to the group. Any monthly subscription charge specified here will not appear in individual participants' charts. But the charge(s) will be calculated and added to any invoices generated for the group. 


If you want to bill automatically for each patient covered by the group account via your integrated Bluefin account (this is not possible with Stripe), set the Monthly Subscription amount here to $0. Then you would follow the instructions to set up automatic subscription billing for group participants.


Covered Billing Categories

You can also designate charge categories (as defined for the charges in your Charge List) to be automatically covered by the employer group of the participating patient. To do so, you would select the charge categories in the "Invoicing Rules" section under "Covered Billing Categories". 


Such charges used by a patient covered by an group sponsored plan would be added directly to their patient chart. The charge will appear in with a box checked by default to indicate that it needs to be paid for by the group account.


That box (shown on image on the right) can be manually checked or unchecked. So charges within covered billing categories do not necessarily have to be applied to the group. And charges in other, generally non-covered, billing categories, may be applied to the group.


If a charge is set to be covered by the group, then the balance due on that charge will not affect the patient's balance. And the charge will appear on any group invoice that you create for that group under Admin > Manage > Groups/ Corporate Billing.


Adding a Dummy Patient Chart for the Group Account

If you want to process payments made by the group account via your integrated merchant services in Cerbo, or to set up automatic subscription billing for group participants through your integrated Bluefin account, you will need to add a dummy patient chart for the group. This can be done instead - or in addition to - adding the group under Admin > Manage > Group/ Corporate Accounts.


Set up the dummy patient chart as you would add a regular new patient to the EMR. 

  • Their name should be the group/ company name. And can include something obvious in it to differentiate it from a regular patient, if desired. 
  • If you want the group to have access to the Patient Portal (for example, to securely add payment info or to have access to invoices you've generated and saved for them), you will add their zip code and email address, and send them an invitation to set up their Patient Portal username and password.


Note that if you add the group under Admin > Manage > Group/ Corporate Accounts AND as a dummy patient, then the options when adding a charge to participating patients' charts can be a little confusing.


Specifically, you will see two checkboxes (example shown in image on the right) when adding the charge. Those checkboxes determine where the balance of that charge appears.

  1. Apply to the dummy patient chart's account balance. This will make it so the charge itself appears in both the participating patient's account AND the payor group's dummy patient account. But the balance due on the charge, if any, will only affect the payor group's dummy patient account.
  2. This charge should be paid for by group account. This makes it so that the balance due on the charge, if any, ONLY appears on the invoice manually generated for that group account under Admin > Manage > Groups/ Corporate Accounts. If the box is checked, the balance on that charge will not affect either the participating patient's account or the payor group's dummy patient account. But it will be added to any invoice generated for the group/corporate account.


Adding Group-Participants

If you create a group account under Admin > Manage > Group/ Corporate Accounts, the system will automatically generate a group-specific new patient online registration link. You can find this link at the top of the Edit Group Account window.  This would be the link that the employer or group can provide to their participating employees/ group members to sign up with your clinic so that the system registers the patients correctly as being under the relevant corporate/ group account. 


You can also manually add participating patient(s) to the EHR. And associate them with the group billing account within the Billing tab of their Patient Information.


If you have added a dummy patient chart for the group, you can add a relationship between the participating patient and the group. And then select "Bills are paid by another patient" for the participating patient, and select the group account. That will make it possible to:

  • Set up an automatic subscription through your integrated Bluefin account in Cerbo that applies to/ is paid by the group.
  • Manually designate specific charges in the patient's account to apply to the account balance in the group's dummy patient chart, if desired.


Billing the Payor Group

Generating a Manual Invoice Under Admin > Manage > Group/ Corporate Accounts

If you have defined monthly subscription amounts and/ or covered billing categories in Admin > Manage > Group/ Corporate Accounts, then you can manually generate an invoice for the group there as well

In Admin > Manage > Group/ Corporate Accounts, click on the invoice (folder) icon to the right of the group name. 
Set the date range to include on the invoice, and generate the invoice.

The invoice will display included charge types in columns, and participating group members in rows. At the bottom of the invoice, you can see totals by charge category and overall.


That invoice may be paid fully outside of Cerbo. Or you can use a dummy patient chart for the group account to pay it using your integrated merchant services through Cerbo and a saved payment method there. See Adding a New Patient to the EMR. You would add the total invoice as a charge to their billing block. And then take a payment via the billing block using a saved payment method provided to you by the group/ corporate account.


Setting Charges to Apply to the Group's Dummy Patient Account

If you set charges incurred by a patient to be added to the payor group's dummy patient account, then the balance due on those charges will affect only the payor group's dummy patient account balance.


Note that if the box for "this charge should be paid for by group account" is checked, the balance on that charge will not appear on either the participating patient's or the payor group's dummy patient chart.


You could therefore use this checkbox if:

  1. There are ancillary charges that are to be paid by the payor group, and
  2. you want to do so via their dummy patient chart (rather than the separate manual invoice process outlined above).

You can add a payment directly in the group's dummy patient account, and apply that payment towards one or more of the charges that have been applied to that dummy chart. You could add charges for different participating patients all applied to the payor group's dummy patient account, and all paid with a single payment in the group's dummy patient account.


Setting up Subscriptions to Automatically Bill as a Group to the Payor Group's Account

Follow the steps in this help article to set up participating patients' subscriptions to all bill as one transaction to the payor group's dummy patient account.


When the linked subscriptions run, a separate charge will be added to each participating patient's chart. The balance of those subscription charges will be applied to the payor group's dummy patient account. The participating patients' balances will not be affected, but you'll see the subscription entry on their ledger. The payor group's dummy patient account will show all the individual subscription charges. And if the $0 primary subscription in the group's dummy patient account is set to pay automatically, all of the linked subscriptions for participating patients will be paid with one single automatic payment in the group's dummy patient account.


If it is not set to pay automatically, you can take payment(s) from the group however you want, and record those accordingly in the payor group's dummy patient account.