User Guide — Voids
Every transaction in athenaOne affects the financial records of your practice. To "undo" a transaction, you cannot simply delete the transaction record itself because previous financial records would no longer balance. Instead, you must void a transaction to ensure that the financial history of your practice remains accurate.
Please do not void payments or takebacks posted on claims by athenahealth. If you suspect that a claim is posted incorrectly, please contact us so that we can review the claim and correct it if needed.
User roles for voids
Several user roles are associated with voiding transactions. These roles give your practice administrators more control over voiding permissions.
The Void Charges and Transactions role includes these permissions:
- Void Charges
- Void Collect Adjustments
- Void Own TOS Payments
- Void Transactions
- Onboarding Dashboard
- Live Benchmarks Access
- Messaging, user, and practice pages
- View Invoices
- EDIT SCHEDULES
- EDITBILLINGADMIN
- EDITDEMOGRAPHICS
- Research Menu
- Workflow Dashboard Access
The Void Transactions role includes these permissions:
- Void Collect Adjustments
- Void Own TOS Payments
- Void Transactions
- Onboarding Dashboard
- Live Benchmarks Access
- Messaging, user, and practice pages
- View Invoices
- EDIT SCHEDULES
- EDITBILLINGADMIN
- EDITDEMOGRAPHICS
- Research Menu
- Workflow Dashboard Access
The Void Transactions (excluding Collect Adjustments) role includes all permissions included in Void Transactions, excluding the permission to void collect adjustments, allowing you to designate certain users who can void transactions in general but not collect adjustments. The Void Transactions (excluding Collect Adjustments) role includes these permissions:
- Void Own TOS Payments
- Void Transactions
- Onboarding Dashboard
- Live Benchmarks Access
- Messaging, user, and practice pages
- View Invoices
- EDIT SCHEDULES
- EDITBILLINGADMIN
- EDITDEMOGRAPHICS
- Research Menu
- Workflow Dashboard Access
Where to void a transaction
You can void a transaction as follows:
- On the Patient Activity page, click void this transaction.
- On the Claim Edit page, click Void this transaction for the transaction.
- On the Payment Batch Detail page, click void for the payment you want to void.
How athenaOne handles voids
When you void a transaction, athenaOne does not remove the original record. Instead, it creates another transaction of the same type, with an equal dollar amount, but with the opposite sign (for example, if the original transaction was for + $100, a void is created for an amount of - $100).
A transaction is not removed outright; rather, it is treated as though the opposite of that transaction were posted at the time that it was voided. This "void" transaction counts as the opposite of the real transaction in amount, and figures as "minus 1 transaction" wherever counting transactions. Thus, whenever you look at a stretch of time that begins before the transaction was posted and ends after the transaction was voided, it is completely invisible, totaling to zero in every way. Likewise, when looking at a period of time that includes the posted transaction but ends before the transaction was voided, the transaction appears just as it did before it was voided. This is the fundamental idea behind voiding transactions.
Note: For closed charge entry batches, TARGET # CLAIMS may not match TOTAL CLAIMS if claims have been deleted or void recreated.
When you edit a claim with transactions posted in a CLOSED period, the system transparently voids and recreates the entire claim if any of the following fields are updated:
- Primary/Secondary Insurance
- Provider/Supervising Provider
- Procedure
- Service Dept/Patient Dept
Because the claim has been voided and recreated, the post date is changed to the current date.
Voided Transactions report
You can use the Voided Transactions report in the Report Library to track void activity within your practice. This report displays charge, payment, and unapplied transactions that were voided by practice users within a specified date range. The Voided Transactions report is located on the Billing Operations tab of the Report Library.