Applying Credits

Working with credits, handling accounts receivables, the ability to properly account for all outstanding balances, entering monies received, appropriate adjusting and or transferring of monies can be one of the more challenging functions of your practice. Understanding how NextGen® Enterprise PM handles unapplied credits that are not associated to charges, that is, prepayment for surgery or co-pay paid in advance of the service being entered, is a component of A/R that is critical to reporting.

In NextGen® Enterprise PM, you can accept and post money in advance of services being provided and apply the funds to either an account (person or employer) or an encounter. In addition, you can transfer funds from an encounter to an account as well as from an account to a line item on an encounter. In NextGen® Enterprise PM, you can define for your practice how unapplied credits and debits are tracked and reported. You can define these transactions as either adjustments or payments.

Before you can apply these unapplied amounts you need to:

• Decide, as a practice, how you are going to apply these amounts.
  • Credits and debits can be set up as adjustments to an account or an encounter.
  • Credits and debits can be set up as payments to an account or an encounter.

• Create transaction codes
  • If credits and debits are to be set up as adjustments, use transaction type of Adjustments.
  • If credits and debits are to be set up as payments, use transaction type of Payments.

• Utilize the transaction codes created in Practice Preferences.
  • If credits and debits are to be set up as adjustments, use transaction type of adjustments for the following transaction codes:
    • Applied Encounter/Invoice Credit
    • Applied Encounter/Invoice Debit
    • Applied Account Credit
    • Applied Account Debit
    • Transfer Credit to Account
    • Receive Credit on Account

• If credits and debits are to be setup as payments, use transaction type of payments for the following transaction codes:
  • Applied Encounter/Invoice Credit
  • Applied Encounter/Invoice Debit
  • Applied Account Credit
  • Applied Account Debit
  • Transfer Credit to Account
  • Receive Credit on Account

If credits and debits are to be set up as payments, one additional option is required, be sure to select the Utilize unapplied credit as payment option at the bottom of the Preference tab.