Charges and payments

A charge belongs to an encounter. Clinical Coordinator enters the service description and amount, then uses its status to distinguish a draft, approved, invoiced or voided charge. A payment belongs to a patient and carries the received date, amount, reference and confirmation status. These records answer different questions: what service was charged for an episode, and what money was received from a patient.

The separation is useful in residential care where a coordinator may need to review a care episode before its service charge is approved. A patient payment can be confirmed without assuming which particular encounter it settles. Clinical Coordinator uses the receipt reference to investigate the payment against its source.

• Encounter charge. The service description and amount remain attached to the episode that prompted the charge.
• Charge decision. Draft, approved, invoiced and voided states show where the charge sits in the team’s review.
• Patient receipt. The amount, received date and reference identify a payment, while pending, confirmed and refunded distinguish its current state.

Decide which services are entered as charges and how the description should read. Define who checks an amount before moving a draft charge to approved, and who records that an approved charge has been invoiced. If the financial system creates invoices, agree on how the local status is updated after its confirmation. A void should follow the team’s billing correction process so the reason remains understandable.

For payments, agree on the reference format used for matching an external receipt. Identify the person with payment entry access who confirms money received and handles refunds. The charge refers to an encounter while the payment refers directly to the patient; use the receipt reference during reconciliation. The reconciliation report should keep those populations visible separately.

After a completed encounter, the coordinator records a service charge as draft, reviews the description and amount, then approves it. The external billing process issues the invoice and the coordinator updates the local charge state. A payment later arrives for the patient. The coordinator reads the patient payment record and its reference against the receipt source. The team can see both records without assuming that the payment automatically clears that specific charge.

• Draft charges — Review episode-linked service descriptions and amounts before approval.
• Pending payments — Check received amounts and references before confirmation.

Follow charge and payment review and encounter review.