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What does it mean to record payments from patients?

Practices collect payment from patients for services rendered during different points in the patient visit lifecycle. Elation offers different features for recording payment collected:
  • Using Elation’s Patient Payments feature
  • During patient check in
  • After the encounter

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How can Elation’s features make recording payments efficient?

Collecting and recording payments from patients is an essential part of running a practice. Payment and billing features in Elation are designed to ensure your practice has multiple options for collecting and tracking these payments. You can use Elation to store patient payment information collected via an integrated solution like the Patient Payments feature as well as payments collected via other external solutions/methods, and have a designated source of truth for your payment collection workflows.
  • The Patient Payments feature is an integrated solution that will increase your collection rate, provide an easier way for your patients to pay your practice, and save your practice time.
  • If you collect payments during check in, you can utilize the Patient Payments feature to record payments or tie the payment to the appointment for reporting for an external system.
  • Recording payments directly in the visit note after the patient encounter enables your practice to generate detailed invoices and/or receipts for your patients.
If your practice uses Elation Billing , patient payment workflows are managed through the Elation Billing PMS. See the Elation Billing payment articles linked in Related Articles below.

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What payment recording features does Elation offer?

Elation offers multiple payment recording features, which can be used in combination with each other, or separately, depending on your practice’s needs. These include Elation’s Patient Payment feature, the ability to record payments directly in the check-in window, and the ability to document billing information directly in a visit note and generate patient invoices.

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Elation’s Patient Payment feature

It is easy to request a payment from a patient using Elation’s Patient Payment feature with just a few simple steps detailed in our Patient Payments Guide- Securely collect payments digitally from patients . Once a payment is completed, the payment is automatically recorded and stored in the Patient Payment Report for records. You can also reprint receipts for patients from the Patient Payment Report. Elation partnered with Stripe, a secure, Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliant, digital, payment processing platform, to provide you with the ability to collect payments from your patients directly within Elation. Using Elation’s Patient Payments feature, your practice can collect payments for any services you offer, at any time during the day, and manage your full transaction history directly within Elation.

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Record payment during check in

Note: If you are utilizing the Patient Payment feature, please reference the section above for steps on how you can send a request to the patient upon check in, or charge their card on file.
When a patient arrives for their appointment, you are able to record a payment upon check in. Changing their appointment status to “Checked In” will open the check in window that asks you to confirm their Patient Details. If your practice uses the Patient Payment feature, you can reference the patient’s copay and deductible from the check in window, and open the Patient Payment window to send a charge to the patient. Payment request at check in.png If your practice does not use Patient Payments and uses a third party billing system, you can document that a payment was collected from the check in window by selecting “Save & Record Payment” and recording the payment amount in the “Patient Payment” box. You can also select “Edit” directly on the appointment and record a payment if you did not document this with the initial check in window open. Record Payment at Check in.png You can reference the payments collected at check in and track the payments for this workflow through Elation’s Billing Home .
  • There must be a visit note created for the appointment in the patient chart for the Patient Payment information (shown above) to be displayed in Billing Home .

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Patient invoicing and visit note documentation

You can document payment information and generate an invoice and/or receipt directly within a visit note in the Billing Information window. Here you can add detailed payment information such as CPT codes with their associated charges and quantities as well as the related Dx codes. With information documented here, your billing team can determine how much to charge the patient for the visit.
  • Staff Level Users will need to be designated as billing delegates for specific providers if your practice would like staff to be able to edit billing information on a visit note after the visit note has been signed.
Patient Payment- Add to billing information.png You have the option to print an invoice and/or receipt for the patient directly from the visit note. When printing an invoice and/or receipt, you have the option to print a Simple Invoice (no Dx), Claims Invoice (ICD-10), or a Claims Invoice (ICD-9). You can print a claims invoice if the patient needs to submit a receipt to their insurance for reimbursement. Patient Payment- Print Invoice.png

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Benefits of utilizing Billing Home

Practices that use the Patient Payments feature can most effectively track payments in the Patient Payment Report .
Billing Home in Elation allows your practice to track payments that were collected as cash, check or through a third party system. You can enter payment information for any bill from Billing Home as well as print patient invoices.