Overview

In addition to standard individual subscriptions, Cerbo allows you to link one or more dependents' subscriptions to another patient, so they are processed together. This can be used for creating family subscriptions. Or for having a group or corporate sponsor pay for all group members' subscriptions.


* Currently this works only for clinics using our Bluefin integration and Propelr integration


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Details

If multiple family members are members of your clinic, you can always set up their subscriptions individually. You can even add one payor's payment information to each of their charts, so that the memberships could all be paid from one card. Each individual membership would then be automatically paid according to its own schedule/ settings.


However, if desired, you can group one or more dependents' subscriptions under a payor's "master" subscription. So that all of the linked subscriptions are paid in one transaction, according to the schedule set for the payor's own subscription.


Step 1. Create a subscription for the Primary/ Payor Account - this can be the head of household for a family account. Or, for an Employer/Group, you can create a dummy patient chart representing the employer, and add the primary/ payor subscription there. For an employer/ group account, that subscription could be for a zero dollar charge if the only charges will be for the participating group members.


Step 2. Add a relationship between the Primary/ Payor Account and any patients who should be linked to/ paid under that account.


Step 3a. In each dependent patient's chart, set it up so that the dependent patient's bills can be paid by another patient. Don't worry if you don't want all bills to be paid by the Primary account - dependent patients still default to paying their own invoices. This setting just:

  • Makes it possible to link the dependent's membership to the Primary account.
  • Makes any saved credit cards in the Primary account available to add payments in the dependent's account.
  • And gives the option when adding a charge/ payment in either the Primary or Dependent's account to assign that charge/ payment to the other person's account (this is an uncommon use-case).


Step 3b. Add a new subscription for the Payor account. This can be a regular subscription (say if the employer is also a patient), or it can be a $0 placeholder subscription.


Step 3c. Add a new subscription for the dependent patient account. By default this will create an individual subscription in the dependent's account. But in the Add Subscription window, you'll see an option to link it to the Primary subscription:


Click that link to join the dependent patient's subscription to the Primary account. Once you do that you'll notice that you lose the ability to set the timing of the subscription and whether it's paid manually or automatically. Those are now controlled by the Primary subscription. But you can set which charge applies for this patient and who in the practice "gets credit" for the patient in question. The individual sub-subscriptions within a pooled subscription can each credit a different provider.


Step 4. Confirm that everything looks correct. Once all the subscriptions have been linked to the Primary, you can go back to the primary account and click on their subscription to make sure it looks correct to you:


When the subscription runs, a separate charge will be added to each patient's chart, and the balance of those charges will be applied to the Primary's account. The dependents' balances will not be affected, but you'll see the subscription on their ledger. On the Primary account you'll see all the charges. And if the subscription is set to pay automatically, only a single payment will process that it will apply to all the linked charges.


Editing Linked Family/ Group Subscriptions

If you need to edit a subscription for a patient who is part of a linked family or corporate group, you can cancel their current subscription and add the new subscription (making sure to link that to the family or corporate group, as above). However, to change the Primary subscription, you would need to first cancel all of the dependent patients' subscriptions. Then add the changed subscription to the Primary account. Then re-add all the dependent patients' subscription information.


Other Keywords: Family billing, memberships