Elation Billing provides tools and workflows to help you manage patient credits and overpayments effectively, ensuring transparency and accuracy in billing. This article covers how to post, apply, and track patient credits to avoid redundant charges.
Posting Overpayments or Credits to a Patient Account
When a patient overpays, such as paying more than their copay amount, you can post the excess amount to their account as an unapplied payment. By doing this, the credit is clearly visible in the patient's profile.
Steps to Post Overpayments:
Navigate to the patient’s account in Elation Billing.
Post the overpaid amount as an unapplied payment if there is no outstanding balance due.
This ensures the credit remains on the account and can be used for future charges or copays. However, note that Elation Billing does not apply these credits automatically.
Applying Credits to Future Charges
To use credits for future charges, your billing staff should manually check the patient's account before collecting payments. Any unapplied credits can be applied to new charges or copays to prevent redundant payments.
Best Practices:
Regularly review patient profiles for unapplied payments.
Manually adjust charges during payment collection to reflect any existing credits.
Identifying Accounts with Credits
Elation Billing allows you to find and report on accounts with credits using the Patient Balance Report. This report includes all patient balances, including those with negative values (credits).
Steps to Identify Credits:
Open the Patient Balance Report in your Elation Billing dashboard.
Export the report for detailed analysis.
Filter the exported data to show accounts with negative balances, representing credits.
This method helps in tracking and applying credits systematically.