Budget Account Preferences for Practices
You can set various preferences for budget accounts for your practice. You can select the type of budget communication send to patients, Budget Letters or Budget Statements. Budget letters communicate information about a plan in a separate letter while budget statements communicate dunning messages about a budget plan as additional information printed on the guarantor's statements instead of a separate letter.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Default budget type |
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| Minimum flat dollar payment amount | Takes the amount for the minimum allowed payment for a budget plan. An application message appears in NextGen® Enterprise PM when the amount entered on any budget plan is less than the minimum. |
| Acceptable % of self-pay balance for perpetual payments | Takes the minimum percentage of the perpetual budget plan balance allowed as a recurring payment. An application message appears in NextGen® Enterprise PM when the payment amount entered is less than the percentage. |
| Transaction Sources that Apply to Budget | Payments on a budget plan that are entered in NextGen® Enterprise PM using Budget source type in the Payment Entry window are recognized by the system as a budget payment, and therefore, the budget plan is updated accordingly as the budget payment posted. This is important in preventing a budget plan from becoming delinquent due to non-payment.
This setting determines whether payments on a budget plan that are entered using the Account or Encounter source type are also recognized as budget payments.
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| Minimum payment interval | Takes the minimum number of days between payment cycles. Budget plans cannot be set up for less than the defined interval. To allow time for statement and payment mailing, the interval must be set for at least seven days. |
| Maximum number of months for non-perpetual budgets | Takes the maximum length for the duration of non-perpetual budget plans. If the value is set to zero , there is no maximum. |
| Default collection agency | Uses the collection agency as the default when a budget is terminated. Termination automatically results in pre-listing the encounters.
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| Days in advance of scheduled due date to print letters | Takes the entered number of days before the budget Next Letter Date for letters to be printed. The number you enter here depends on how often your practice prints letters. The Next Letter Date is the payment due date. In determining an appropriate number, you should factor in the time needed to print and mail the correspondence. For example, if you set the field to five days and a user sets up a budget payment plan and attempts to enter today or tomorrow as the start date, then the user encounters a message saying that the minimum start date must be at least five days from today. |
| Allowable number of days to receive payment from due date | Specifies the number of grace period days after the budget due date when the payment must be received. This preference controls the Must Receive By date that optionally prints on statements and letters. For example, if you set this preference to 15 days and the first payment date is June 1, then that payment must be received by June 16. |
| Number of days after delinquency before pre-list | Takes the number of days that must pass after a budget plan has reached delinquent status before it goes into pre-list status. |
| Number of days after pre-list before termination | Takes the number of days that must pass after a budget plan has reached pre-list status before it will be terminated and put on a pre-list for collections. |
| Default Dunning Messages | If you selected Budget Statements as your budget communication method, it takes the selected Budget Statements library that contains the default dunning messages to include on the statements. You can modify the messages in the Budget Statement Messages master file and then attach the messages to the appropriate status in the Budget Statement library. |
| Omit In Progress encounters from budget plans | Prevents In Progress encounters in budget plans in NextGen® Enterprise PM. Only encounters with Unbilled status can be included in the budget.
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