Charges and payments

A charge describes a service on an encounter and records its amount and status. Clinical Coordinator can enter charges for the visit they are coordinating. The charge can be Draft, Approved, Invoiced or Voided, which lets the team distinguish preparation from the later billing state. The encounter link keeps the service charge with the care episode that produced it.

A payment record belongs to a patient. It carries a received date, amount, reference and status of Pending, Confirmed or Refunded. Because payments are patient-linked while charges are encounter-linked, staff should use the reference and patient identity when reconciling activity. The payment list lets the coordinator inspect pending money and compare the patient reference with the charge for a visit.

• Prepare. Clinical Coordinator creates a charge against the relevant encounter with a service description and amount.
• Review. The team uses the charge status to distinguish Draft from Approved, Invoiced or Voided.
• Inspect collection. Clinical Coordinator reads the patient payment record, its date, amount, reference and current status.

The charge and payment records give the team a way to compare service amounts and collections. During setup, agree a reference convention for matching patient payments with billing activity and how the billing system supplies payment updates.

Define service descriptions and how the coordinator records each billing status. The Clinical Coordinator manages charge records and can view payment records. Agree where payment entries originate and how the coordinator checks a Pending or Refunded payment against the patient reference. Agree when a charge is Voided and who investigates a payment marked Refunded.

The team should also agree how it handles a patient with several encounters and one payment. The charge remains attached to its encounter, while the payment remains attached to the patient. A billing connection may carry the allocation or invoice detail the organization uses for its books.

A coordinator closes an encounter after review and enters the service description and amount as a Draft charge. The coordinator updates the charge to Approved after the billing review, then to Invoiced when issued. When the patient pays, the coordinator inspects the patient payment record, including its received date, amount, reference and current status.

If a service is not billable, mark the charge Voided rather than treating it as collected. If money is returned, a payment record marked Refunded helps the coordinator reconcile the case. The team can review the patient payment register with encounter charges to resolve questions about timing and reference identity.

• Draft charges — Encounter charges awaiting the billing decision.
• Pending payments — Patient payments marked Pending for reference checks.

See charge and payment review and follow-up coordination. The implementation guide covers the billing handoff.