Balancing and Closing

Procedures Fall CHUG 2015

Presented by Kelly Gentry

Director, Practice Management Support Services

Overview of Presentation • Daily Procedures

1. Opening a batch

2. Balancing Batches

3. Daily Reports/Transaction & Charge Management

4. Batch “Soft” Closing

• Monthly Procedures 1. Monthly Reports

2. Setting Closing Date/“Hard” Close

• Repercussions of not Closing

• Workflow for Closed Batches

• Frequently Asked Questions/General Information

Daily Procedures Opening a Daily Batch

All charges, payments, adjustments, and/or transfers entered into the system are associated with a

batch. A batch provides a mechanism by which you can group specific transactions for balancing, reviewing, and/or closing procedures.

Recommendations: 1. Each user works in their own daily batch

2. All charges/transactions being posted for the day are posted in a current batch with a DOE of that day regardless of the Dates of Service.

Steps: 1. Edit > Default Batch (from anywhere within the application)

2. Click onto the Binoculars on the Default Batch field

3. Click New

4. Ensure that the Date of Entry and Batch name are what they should be. Batch name defaults to login date

5. Click OK and Check ‘Set as Default’

6. OK and OK again

1 2

3 4

5

Setting Default Batch

Batch Management

At least one batch for each user that posts

any financial transactions

Creative Batches:

• A morning and afternoon batch for each user

• A specific batch for a large insurance check

• Batches for ERA files

Balancing Batches

• Every employee should be responsible

for balancing their own batches.

• There are 2 options for balancing a batch

Balancing: Daily Balance Report Reports> Financial> Daily Balance Report

Balancing: Daily Balance Report

Balancing: Charge and Transaction Management

These 2 components allow you to

select your Batch and view a list of

all Charges and Transactions

posted. The list does provide a total

at the end to use for Balancing.

Charge Management Transaction Management

Balancing: Charge Management

Add up your CPT codes from Superbills to get a

quick and accurate total, it should match the

sum of the CPT codes in here.

Balancing: Transaction

Management

By default transactions are listed in

order entry, but you can use the column

headings change the sort order.

Unapplied Funds

Batches can NOT be closed

with Unapplied Funds

Finding Unapplied Funds

Use Transaction Management to find Unapplied Funds

Batch Closing

• Batch Closing is often referred to as a “soft”

close

• It’s recommended that each user close their

individual batch after confirming they have

balanced for the day

• Performing a “soft” close changes the status on

the batch from Open to Batch Closed

• Batch Closing is not permanent. You can

reopen the Batch or set Batch Closing Override

to make changes in the Batch.

Batch Closing

• Steps to perform Batch Closing 1. Administration > Batches > Batch Closing

2. Search for the Batch by name or date of entry

3. Place a check mark on the batch

4. Select Close Batch

NOTE: To reopen a “soft”

closed batch, perform the

Steps 1-3 above then for

Step 4, you will select

Open Batch

Batch Closing Override Batch Closing Override can be turned on to allow a user to make

changes to items posted

into any “soft” closed batch.

Steps: Administration > Batches > Click onto Batch Closing Override

This will flash in the bottom right corner of Centricity

SPR 60778: There is an issue in CPS 12 that allows users into Batch Closing Override even

without security permissions. This is fixed in CPS 12.0.11 that is coming soon!

Daily Reports • Daily Balance - you may want to print

a “full” daily balance by Date Range for all batches

• Daily Transaction Summary

• Daily Financial Summary

• Deposit Slip – this report does not include EFT’s

Report Criteria:

First Page

Daily Reports Made Easy

On the saved report criteria enter the word “Today” in the Date range to get today’s data

You can create a Daily Balance folder in Reports and save a

copy of each report for easy printing.

Daily Reports Made Easy Once you have entered all of your criteria, choose File > Save

As and name give the selection a unique name.

Daily Reports Made Easy Create a new Folder for your Saved Criteria

Steps: Right click the folder where you want your new

folder to be listed under.

To run all reports in this folder at once just select the

folder then choose Preview or Print.

Monthly Procedures • Monthly Reports

Common Reports: Monthly Financial Summary, Monthly Transaction Summary, Monthly Revenue Analysis & Monthly Production Analysis – It’s recommended to print & review Monthly reports prior to setting Closing Date

– Setting up a Monthly reports folder with a copy of each report saved in it will save time. To print current month use Month in the date fields. To print previous month use Month-1

Report Criteria:

First Page

Monthly Reports

Helpful Hints: • Run reports by DOE and use DOS only when

looking to obtain specific information about

services performed during a time period

• The blue ? on the toolbar provides a description of

the report

• Visit http://www.quatris.com/ge-centricity/standard-

reports/ for more information on Standard reports.

Setting a Closing Date • Setting a Closing Date is often referred to as a “hard”

close

• Once you set a Closing Date, all batches with a Date of Entry on that date and prior change to Closed Status

• You will no longer be able to set Batch Closing Override to make changes to items in a Closed Batch or re-open a Closed batch.

• After a date of entry has been closed, financial history cannot be deleted/changed. This action is permanent.

• Ensure all charges and payments have been entered prior to setting a Closing Date

Steps to setting a Closing Date • Administration > Batches > Closing Date

• Enter the date in which you would like Centricity to lock down and

hard close in the New Closing Date field and click the OK button.

Steps to setting a Closing Date • If there are any unapplied funds or any

batches that have not been Batch Closed (soft-closed) you will get a prompt notifying you of this.

• You will need to resolve any unapplied funds in the Transaction Management module first, before you can finalize the hard-close process.

• You will then be prompted to confirm that you would like to set a new closing date and that once this date is set it cannot be reversed.

– Click the OK button to confirm.

Repercussions of not Closing • Charges and transactions are not secure. They

can be deleted, changed, etc with no tracking trail.

• Monthly report data can change from what was previously generated.

• Since there is no tracking trail, it’s very difficult to determine what caused the report data to change

• If you pay providers based on revenue or production and you change something in a past batch, those providers can either be over or under paid.

Workflow for Closed Batches When a batch is Closed you cannot delete/change charges or

transactions. Instead, you must make counter-balancing transactions to correct mistakes.

Charges 1. Void – if a charge was posted incorrectly, you can void the entire visit or void just one procedure on a visit.

2. If a charge was missed and not entered, you need to enter it into a current batch.

Transactions – Payments/adjustments 1. Conveyance – post what is referred to as a Conveyance if a payment was posted to the incorrect ticket and/or

patient.

2. Removing a Payment – if a payment was posted that should not have been, you must post a “reverse” payment (same concept as posting a Refund)

3. Adjustments- if an adjustment was posted in error, you would post a “reverse” adjustment to undo the original one.

4. If a payment was missed and not posted, post into a current batch.

FAQ and Helpful Hints/Recommendations

• It’s recommended that you set a Closing Date at least

quarterly although some do it monthly or yearly. Best

practice would be to close monthly.

• If you have not hard closed and data in those “open”

months changes, it’s difficult to find the cause. Your

option would be to compare Daily Balance reports

previously printed to newly printed ones to find

differences.

• If you do not include report criteria on the first page of

your reports it is very difficult to troubleshoot any kind of

balancing issue you may have.

FAQ and Helpful Hints/Recommendations

• The Reimbursement Analysis reports are dependent

upon Closing Date. If you print these reports for a time

frame that is not “hard” closed, the payment data will be

blank or not accurate.

• You must have Security authorization to set Batch

Closing Override. When it is set, it’s only set on that one

workstation.

• Batch Closing Override allows for changes to all “soft”

closed batches while Reopening a batch will only permit

changes to that one batch that was reopened.

Thank you for your time