How to Enable and Use Applied Payments

Related Training
Applied Payments Recorded Class

For practices that pay providers based on collections, Sensei Cloud's Applied Payments functionality enables you to apply funds from posted credits to open debits (charges). By applying payments directly to a producer's work, you can track and report on collection activities (Applied Payments) for each provider. This functionality is disabled by default. Administrative permissions are required to enable it.

You can also enable a prompt that displays the Apply Payment window automatically when a payment is posted, enabling the team member to distribute the funds as part of the workflow.

When this features is enabled, you can:

• Apply credits to open charges when posting the transaction.
• Apply credits after the payment is posted.
• View distribution details.
• Track and report on distributions and unapplied credits from the Applied Payments window.

When a payment has been applied in full to a particular charge, a green check is displayed for that line item in the patient Ledger. A red ! indicates no money has been applied to that item, and a gold triangle indicates a partial application.

Enable Applied Payments

To enable Applied Payments for your practice:

1. From the Administration tab, select Practice Settings > Financial Rules. 
   
2. Under Actions, select Edit Financial Rules. 
3. For  This Practice Distributes Credits, select Yes.
4. If you want Sensei Cloud to prompt users to apply posted funds to open charges, click Yes.
   Note: It is recommended that you select Yes to enable the Apply Payment window to display automatically during the Post Payment process. When No is selected, this process requires an extra step of selecting the payment from the ledger and choosing to apply it.
5. Click Save.

Note: Enabling This Practice Distributes Credits also enables Pre-Payment functionality. For more information, see How to Apply Pre-Payments.

Apply Payments When Posting a Transaction

To apply payments when posting a transaction (prompt enabled):

1. From the Post New Payment window, enter the payment information and click Post Payment. The Apply Payment window is displayed showing the amount available to apply. Any distributions  already made to the charge from other credits are accounted for in the Other Payments column. Any existing distributions made towards the charge from the selected credit are displayed in the Apply column.
   
   Note: When distributing the funds of an insurance payment, the available charges are limited to those for the associated insurance claim. 
2. Select the open charge or charges to which you want to apply this payment, and enter the amount or amounts in the Apply column.
   Note: You cannot over-distribute the credit’s total funds (for example, apply more than is available) or over-distribute to a debit (for example, apply more money than is needed to cover the charge).
3. Click Save.
   Note: You can adjust the credit’s distributions at any time, adding distributions for new charges or changing existing distributions.

Apply Payments After Posting a Transaction

To apply payments after posting a transaction:

1. From the Patient tab, select Financials > Ledger.
2. Select a payment to view the details.
   
3. Select Apply this Payment. The Apply Payment window is displayed.
4. Select the open charge or charges to which you want to apply this payment, and then enter the amount or amounts in the Apply column.
5. Click Save.

View Distribution Details

Select the payment in the ledger and click View Distribution Detail.