Payment Plans 

Payment plans are especially important in Orthodontic offices. Payment plans are created by clicking the Payment Plan button in the Account module.

You can set up unlimited payment plans, each with its own guarantor. The guarantor does not have to be in the same family as the patient, making divorce situations much easier. The payment plan shows in both the patient account and the guarantor account. The 'Go To' buttons let you quickly switch between the two accounts.

When you enter a payment plan, it will reduce the account balance of the patient you choose by the amount of the payment plan. For instance, if you do $2000 worth of procedures on a patient and then create a payment plan with a total amount of $2000, then the patient balance would be reduced back down to zero. The responsibility would then fall to the guarantor to make the payments. The $2000 would show as due by the guarantor, but not in the main grid. Instead, the amount would be shown separately in the payment plan grid at the top of the Account module. And instead of being included in ordinary Aging report, amounts due for the payment plan would be tracked by running the Payment Plan Report.

When running Billing, payment plans due are always included, and the amount due for the payment plan shows in the last column of the list of generated bills. Bills are triggered to be printed a set number of days in advance of when the payment is actually due. The number of days can be changed in Misc Setup. The payment plan info will show in separate grid on each bill/statement. The amortization charges that will show are determined by the date range selected to show for the statement.  The amount due on a payment plan will be added to the total amount due at the top of a statement.

Amortization Schedule
Many of the boxes are within a group box called "terms" on the left. Once you have entered the terms of the payment plan, click the Create Schedule button to automatically generate an amortization schedule and place a note in the box at the bottom for future reference. If you are unhappy with the schedule, you can clear it and try again, or you can edit individual charges by double clicking on them.

The principal and interest is only calculated automatically as part of the create schedule function. If you then go in and edit charges, it's up to you to calculate any changes you want to make to the interest.

There is a horizontal black line in the amortization schedule grid which indicates today's date.  It separates past items from future items, and the amount currently due is the running balance up to the black line.  Any Payments that are attached to this payment plan will show in the amortization grid and will affect the running balance.  If a payment shows here it will not show in the main Account module grid.  If extra payments are showing here which should not be, simply detach them from the payment plan by double clicking the payment, and then unchecking the box at the bottom that says "Attached to Payment Plan".

Tracking Expected Insurance Payments

There is a checkbox at the top of the payment plan window to designate any payment plan to be used for tracking expected insurance payments. For instance, if you do orthodontics for $4,000, insurance might pay $1000. But they won't pay it all at once. They might pay it in four installments of $250 each. So you would set up a payment plan to track these installments and to make the patient balance show correctly.

Create the insurance payment plan when you get the first payment from insurance along with the EOB. Check the box at the top. The guarantor for an insurance payment plan is always simply the patient. Create the amortization schedule based on the information on the EOB. But you can be more flexible with the dates on an insurance payment plan. As each payment comes in over the next year, you should delete the corresponding payment plan charge so that all that remains is the future charges.  Payments made to an insurance payment plan will not show as line items within the payment plan window.  The is no way to "attach" insurance payments to any payment plan.  Instead, all insurance payments will affect the main Account module balance and aging.  So the only way to keep the balances accurate is to delete the payment plan charges from inside the payment plan window as the payments come in.