Collections Worklist

 

Note: Collection policies are administered using the Collection Policies page. If you make edits to a collection policy, the Collections Worklist will not reflect those changes until the following morning.

1. Display the Collections Worklist page: On the Main Menu, click Claims. Under SELF-PAY AND COLLECTIONS, click Collections Worklist.
2. Provider group — (Appears if your practice uses provider groups) Select a provider group and click Continue.
   The Filter Collections view appears.

Filter the list of patient accounts in COLLECT status

3. Collection policy — Select the collection policy from the menu. To review claims that were manually placed in COLLECT status, select Sent to COLLECT (manually).
   By default, the worklist generates a list of patients eligible for collections based on the criteria configured for the selected collection policy on the Collection Policies page. You can apply additional filters to this list.
4. Date sent to collections — This field appears if you select a policy that moves claims from one agency to another or moves claims from collections to bad debt. You can change the date range to further refine the list of patient accounts.
5. Primary department — By default, patients in all departments configured for the selected policy appear in the worklist. To filter the list by primary department, select one or more departments. Select None to include patients who have a blank value in the Primary department field. Select Deleted/Inactive to include patients whose primary department is deleted or inactive.
6. Usual provider — By default, patients of all usual providers configured for the selected policy appear in the worklist. To filter the list by usual provider, select one or more providers. Select None to include patients who have a blank value in the Usual provider field. Select Deleted/Inactive to include patients whose usual provider is deleted or inactive.
7. Patient's last name starts with — Select one or more letters of the alphabet.
8. Show patients — Select one or both options.
   • Select Show only the patients who have payment plans to report only on patients with payment plans.
   • Select Show only the patients who have an upcoming appointment to report only on patients with upcoming appointments.
9. Date of upcoming appointment — If you selected the Show only the patients who have an upcoming appointment option, the Date of upcoming appointment field appears. To specify a date range for upcoming appointments, click Select a date range and enter the dates for the upcoming appointments.
10. Exclude patients — Select this option to exclude patients who have manual holds on their accounts.
    Note: Selecting this option does not exclude patients whose statements were held due to a patient account alarm for over a month.
11. Click Filter to display the list of eligible patient accounts.
    The filtered list of patient accounts appears below.
    Note: You can click the Download as CSV button (at the bottom of the page) to download the list of patient accounts to a .CSV file.

Select the accounts to send to the collection agency

12. Review the list of patient accounts with claims eligible for collections.
13. Click the checkboxes to deselect or select the accounts to include in the collection file.
    Note: You can click the checkbox at the top left of the list to select or deselect all accounts at once.
14. Send to collections — Select this option (if it is not already selected) and select the collection agency from the menu. If a default collection agency is specified in the selected policy, that agency is preselected in the menu.
15. Click the Send to Collections button.
    A confirmation message appears.
16. Click OK to batch the selected patient claims into a collection file.
    The View/Edit Billing Batch page appears for the collection batch file that you just created.

On the View/Edit Billing Batch page

17. If you are using an established agency, no further action is necessary. athenahealth will submit the batch to the collection agency using a secure connection.
    Important: Do not click the Mark batch as submitted link on the View/Edit Billing Batch page (selecting this option will prevent athenahealth from submitting the collection batch to the agency).
18. If you are using a non-established agency:
1. Download the collection file by clicking the File link in the upper right-hand corner of the page.
   Note: You can combine multiple files into a single batch for downloading on the Collections Batch Management page.
2. To verify that you successfully downloaded and submitted the collection file to the agency, click the Mark batch as submitted link at the bottom of the page.
   Your username appears in the Submitted by field.

When a claim is sent to collections, the claim is adjusted for reason COLLECT and the claim is closed. All claims selected on the Collections Worklist page are put into a collections batch, which includes the essential information about the claim needed by a collection agency to process it. You can view the collection file (batch) using the View/Edit Billing Batch page.

 

 

Note: Collection policies are administered using the Collection Policies page. If you make edits to a collection policy, the Collections Worklist will not reflect those changes until the following morning.

1. Display the Collections Worklist page: On the Main Menu, click Claims. Under SELF-PAY AND COLLECTIONS, click Collections Worklist.
2. Provider group — (Appears if your practice uses provider groups) Select a provider group and click Continue.
   The Filter Collections view appears.

Filter the list of patient accounts in COLLECT status

3. Collection policy — Select the collection policy from the menu. To review claims that were manually placed in COLLECT status, select Sent to COLLECT (manually).
   By default, the worklist generates a list of patients eligible for collections based on the criteria configured for the selected collection policy on the Collection Policies page. You can apply additional filters to this list.
4. Date sent to collections — This field appears if you selected a policy that moves claims from collections to bad debt. You can change the date range to further refine the list of patient accounts.
5. Primary department — By default, patients in all departments configured for the selected policy appear in the worklist. To filter the list by primary department, select one or more departments. Select None to include patients who have a blank value in the Primary department field. Select Deleted/Inactive to include patients whose primary department is deleted or inactive.
6. Usual provider — By default, patients of all usual providers configured for the selected policy appear in the worklist. To filter the list by usual provider, select one or more providers. Select None to include patients who have a blank value in the Usual provider field. Select Deleted/Inactive to include patients whose usual provider is deleted or inactive.
7. Patient's last name starts with — Select one or more letters of the alphabet.
8. Show patients — Select one or both options.
   • Select Show only the patients who have payment plans to report only on patients with payment plans.
   • Select Show only the patients who have an upcoming appointment to report only on patients with upcoming appointments.
9. Date of upcoming appointment — If you selected the Show only the patients who have an upcoming appointment option, the Date of upcoming appointment field appears. To specify a date range for upcoming appointments, click Select a date range and enter the dates for the upcoming appointments.
10. Exclude patients — Select this option to exclude patients who have manual holds on their accounts.
    Note: Selecting this option does not exclude patients whose statements were held due to a patient account alarm for over a month.
11. Click Filter to display the list of eligible patient accounts.
    The filtered list of patient accounts appears below.

Select the accounts to adjust off

12. Review the list of patient accounts.
13. Click the checkboxes to deselect or select the accounts that you want to adjust off to bad debt, freecare, or other.
    Note: You can click the checkbox at the top left of the list to select or deselect all accounts at once.
14. Adjust off as — Select Bad debt, Freecare, or Other.
15. Custom transaction code — Select the custom transaction code used in your organization for this type of adjustment.
    Note: A transaction code is not required. You can use a custom transaction code to associate bad debt adjustments with a collection agency in the Activity Wizard report and the Collections AR Report. For more information, see Custom Transaction Codes.
16. Click Proceed.
    A confirmation message appears about writing off the patient balances.
17. Click OK to adjust all the selected claims to bad debt, freecare, or other.
    athenaOne applies the BADDEBT, FREECARE, or OTHER adjustment to outstanding balances on the applicable claims and then closes the claims.

 

All practices are required to have a default bad debt policy (for more information, see Default bad debt policy). By default, the bad debt policy is set to automatically adjust self-pay balances to bad debt when no action has been taken in athenaOne 180 days after the balance was transferred to patient responsibility.

Note: For patients who have a payment plan, balances are eligible for bad debt write-off if the patient defaults on the payment plan by missing three scheduled payments.

 

By default, the bad debt policy is automated, but you can edit the policy on the Collection Policies page to make the default bad debt policy manual, in which case you can apply the bad debt policy on the Collections Worklist page. You can choose to postpone the date that the default bad debt policy writes off patient balances to bad debt. For example, you can filter the list of patient accounts on the Collections Worklist page to find patients with upcoming appointments and payment plans. You can postpone the write-off of those balances so that you can ask the patient about payment at the next appointment or add the outstanding amount to the existing payment plan.

1. Display the Collections Worklist page: On the Main Menu, click Claims. Under SELF-PAY AND COLLECTIONS, click Collections Worklist.
2. Provider group — (Appears if your practice uses provider groups) Select a provider group and click Continue.
   
   The Filter Collections view appears.

Filter the list of patient accounts in COLLECT status

3. Collection policy — Select Default Bad Debt.
   The worklist generates a list of patients eligible for collections based on the criteria configured for the default bad debt policy on the Collection Policies page. You can apply additional filters on the Collections Worklist page.
4. Primary department — By default, patients in all departments appear in the worklist. To filter the list by primary department, select one or more departments. Select None to include patients who have a blank value in the Primary department field. Select Deleted/Inactive to include patients whose primary department is deleted or inactive.
5. Usual provider — By default, patients of all usual providers appear in the worklist. To filter the list by usual provider, select one or more providers. Select None to include patients who have a blank value in the Usual provider field. Select Deleted/Inactive to include patients whose usual provider is deleted or inactive.
6. Patient's last name starts with — Select one or more letters of the alphabet.
7. Show patients — Select one or both options. You can use these options to locate patients who have upcoming appointments and postpone the write-off of outstanding balances for those patients until you can talk to the patient during an upcoming appointment or add the outstanding amount to the existing payment plan.
   • Select Show only the patients who have payment plans to report only on patients with payment plans.
   • Select Show only the patients who have an upcoming appointment to report only on patients with upcoming appointments.
8. Date of upcoming appointment — If you selected the Show only the patients who have an upcoming appointment option, the Date of upcoming appointment field appears. To specify a date range for upcoming appointments, click Select a date range and enter the dates for the upcoming appointments.
9. Click Filter to display the list of eligible patient accounts.
   
   The filtered list of patient accounts appears below.

Postpone the write-off date for the selected accounts

10. Review the list of patient accounts.
11. Select the patient accounts that you do not yet want to adjust off to bad debt.
    Note: You can click the checkbox at the top left of the list to select or deselect all accounts at once.
12. Postpone transferring to bad debt until — Select the date to which you want to postpone the transfer to bad debt.
    Tip: athenahealth recommends reviewing the dates in the Upcoming appointments column and selecting a date after the upcoming appointments.
13. Click Proceed.
    
    A confirmation message appears about postponing bad debt write-off for the selected accounts.
14. Click OK to postpone the write-off date for the selected accounts.
    The outstanding balance will appear during the Check-in stage of the patient's upcoming appointment. If the amount is not collected, sent to collections, or written off by the postponed date, the patient account will appear on the Collections Worklist until it's written off as bad debt according to the schedule of the collection policy (as determined by your organization).