In Progress Billing Setup

The In Progress encounter status represents work or care that has not been completed and, therefore, would not be stated in the accounts receivables. For example, you could use the status to represent orthotic or prosthetic devices that are not yet completed or for pre-paid patient care that is not yet administered. When NextGen® Enterprise PM users enter charges and transactions for an In Progress encounter, those items will contain blank process dates and, therefore, cannot officially be included in the financials and cannot be part of the receivables.

After a user creates an encounter in an In Progress status, a process can change the status from In Progress to Unbilled, which is the normal status for an encounter that has yet to go through billing and produce a claim. When the status changes to Unbilled, all charges and transactions entered for the In Progress encounter become posted and the system sets the processing and closing dates on the transactions and charges. If there is a claim when the status is changed to Unbilled, the system automatically changes the status to Billed.

The setup for In Progress billing involves the following steps:

• Enable In Progress billing status.

Caution: Once you turn this feature on, you cannot turn it off.

• Apply In Progress status settings for new encounters by:

Setting the default status of new encounters to In Progress (optional)

Setting security rights that allow users to set the status of new encounters to In Progress (optional)

• Apply Convert In Progress settings for encounters by:

Making the Convert In Progress check box visible on encounters.

Setting the security right that allows users to select the Convert In Progress check box.

Setting security rights that allow users to convert an In Progress encounter status to Unbilled status on demand and in a batch.

• Exclude In Progress encounters from budget plans (optional).
• Exclude In Progress encounters from statements (optional).
• Update Auto Create actions to exclude In Progress encounters (optional).
• Turn on the Encounter Status Change significant event (optional).