AADOM QUICKcast: STOP Adjusting Membership Payments/Benefits to $0!
Are you collecting monthly payments on your membership/in-house benefits plans? Have you ever wondered where to put those monthly payments and how they affect the ledger? Many offices adjust production and/or collections off to $0 on the patient ledger when a patient receives included benefits. This isn’t accurate and can cause issues within a practice. KPI’s are inaccurate, provider compensation can be affected, and a good office manager or accountant knows you should not be adjusting services to zero if you’ve previously collected the revenue. Revenue received should match services rendered and any discrepancies between the two would be a real adjustment. However, what we most commonly see, is membership revenue received and recorded with no match for included benefits. Later when included membership services (exam, cleaning, x-rays) are received from the patient, they are adjusted to $0. This is the equivalent of running a business that only keeps track of top-line revenue but ignores expenses. The services of an exam, cleaning, and x-rays aren’t “FREE”, they have just been paid through a membership plan instead of paid at time of service.
What should you do with those monthly payments and the associated included benefits? Should you post a credit on the patient’s account every time they make a payment? Or perhaps you have thought about putting a receivable on the patient ledger and applying each monthly payment until the balance is paid off. These methods should be avoided too because they come with their own set of inaccuracies and problems.
Have you lobbied to get rid of monthly payments and only offer annual payments because of the issues created? Do you feel like you have created a series of workarounds within your practice management software to “make things work”?
If you have wondered how to properly reconcile the payments and benefits within your membership plan, this QUICKCast is for you!
Session Learning Objectives:
- What the BLEEP am I supposed to do with monthly membership payments
- Best practices on accurately accounting for membership payments/services
- Why you shouldn’t be adjusting membership payments/included benefits to $0
- How to accurately assign included benefits a value
- How to accurately compensate providers and team members for included membership services
Sponsored by Dental Menu
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