Patient Payments 

Payments from patients are entered in the Account module.  Click Payment, or double click an existing payment to edit.

Clinic:  This dropdown is only available if you have Clinics turned on in Show Features.

Payment Date: The date that the payment is received will be used for the Deposit Slip.

Amount: Enter the payment amount. If the amount exceeds the patient's balance owed, then when you click OK, EZ2000 Plus Dental will automatically create a series of pay splits for other family members with balances owed. This makes it easier so that individual transfers do not have to be made. If you want more control, see Payment Splits.

Check #: This is optional, but recommended. Entering check numbers is a good way to find a lost check in a report.

Bank-Branch: This 9 digit number is optional.

Note: Enter a note that will appear under the payment in the Patient Account grid on the Account window.

Payment types: This list can be customized in Definitions, Payment Types.

X-Charge/PayConnect: Process Credit Cards with X-Charge or PayConnect directly from this window.

Apply to Recurring Charge: Check this box to apply the payment to the next Recurring Charge that is due. 

Attached to Payment Plan: Check this box to apply this payment to a Payment Plan.  The payment will show inside the Payment Plan amortization schedule rather than in the Patient Account grid in the Account module.

Pay Splits: Each payment has a list of  payment splits. There can be one split or multiple splits. The split date is the procedure date entered on the Payment Splits window.  Typically the split feature can be ignored since EZ2000 Plus Dental will automatically create a series of splits if the total payment exceeds the patient balance owed. However, if you need more control, (e.g. have a complex family situation with multiple insurances, the patient wants to see which payments went towards which procedures), see Payment Splits.

Family Balances: Shows a list of family members and balances owed to specific providers. This grid is useful for offices that want to track income by provider (see below). Most offices can ignore it. As payments are made, balances will adjust.  The Pay button is a quick way to create a split when a full payment is made for a provider. Simply highlight the entry in the Family Balances list, then click Pay. The balance will transfer to a payment split, and the End balance in the Family Balances grid will change to $0.

Group balances by provider instead of clinic, provider: Check this box to group payments in the Family Balance grid by provider, regardless of work done at different locations. This checkbox is only visible if Clinics is turned on in Show Features.

Tracking Income by Provider
Tracking income by provider is difficult, but possible. It requires attention to how patient payments are split. The Family Balances grid can be used to view balances owed to providers and transfer income.  See Production and Income for a discussion of the important differences between production and income.

The Payment window can be set to display automatically after Entering an Insurance Payment, allowing offices to fine tune the provider balances. This option is set in Account Module Setup. When transferring income between providers, the splits will have dollar values, but the overall payment, or transfer, will be zero.

All production entries (Procedures and Adjustments) already have a provider attached to them. For procedures, the Provider is simply the one who did the work. This could be a dentist or a hygienist. Initial assignment of the provider takes place automatically when the Appointment is marked complete.

Because all production entries already have a provider, it is easy for EZ2000 Plus Dental to assign the correct provider when entering insurance payments. Using the EOB, the payment can be easily split by procedure with very little additional effort. However, there is no automation for Patient Payments. It's much harder for the software to know how to split a patient payment. The reason that the window above is displayed after an insurance payment is not really to make alterations to the insurance payment. We already know that is accurate. It's really to compensate for the original patient payments which probably weren't split properly. After the insurance payment has been entered, it will be much easier to see how the patient payment must be split to cover the remainder. But it would be difficult to alter the original payment accurately. It is simpler to leave the original patient payments untouched, and make the transfer entries as shown above. The goal of these transfer entries is to make sure that no provider gets a negative balance. So use the transfers to move negative entries to the balances of other providers.

You may need a report at the end of the month to catch providers that have been overpaid.  See Query Examples, query #101.