Follow-up and billing

A care task has a patient, assignee, due date, completion date and state. A clinician can use it to keep a promised follow-up visible after the encounter. Open, in-progress, escalated, completed and cancelled states distinguish outstanding work from work that has ended. The task text should say what the assignee needs to do and for which patient.

• Anchor the record. Assign a patient care task to a named person with a due date.
• Capture the evidence. Keep encounter charges separate from patient payment receipts.
• Check the handoff. Review each task, charge and payment by its own status; one completed record does not close the others.

A charge attaches a service description and amount to an encounter. Its status moves from draft toward approved and invoiced, with voided available for an exception. A payment attaches its amount, receipt date and reference to the patient and has pending, confirmed and refunded states. These are distinct records: a charge describes the service billed, while a payment records money received for the patient.

Agree who creates charges, who decides when a draft is approved, and how the team handles a void. Set a convention for payment references and the point at which a pending payment becomes confirmed. Decide which care tasks need a due date and who handles an escalation. If invoices or cash reconciliation are managed elsewhere, define the connection and the owner of that handoff.

Use a completed consultation that requires a call next week. Assign a care task to the clinician with a due date. Enter a charge on the encounter with its service description and amount, then review its status before invoicing. Record a patient payment with its receipt reference when it arrives. Open the task and payment registers to confirm that unfinished care work and pending money remain visible.

If a patient has another encounter before the follow-up call is done, keep the existing task with that patient and check its assignee. Record any new service charge against the encounter that generated it.

• My open care tasks — Find the Licensed Clinician’s assigned follow-up work.
• Charges awaiting decision — Review draft encounter charges before changing their billing state.

Follow the connected records in the operating process and agree the decision points before the first live visit. Use implementation to prepare sample cases with the team. Return to the data model when mapping existing patient and encounter records. The team should confirm that each role can reach the records needed for its own part of the handoff.