Overview of Unapplied Credit Management Dashboard

Unapplied Credit Management (UCM) is a highly impactful way of batch posting, that provides a streamlined, transparent approach to managing unapplied credits, enabling practices to efficiently track, manage, and apply credits for improved financial control and visibility.

Topics Covered

• Access & Utilise the UCM Dashboard
• Bulk Post Unapplied Credits
• Other Actions To Manage Unapplied Credits
• Configure UCM Permissions For Your Practice

Access & Utilise the UCM Dashboard

To get started!

• Navigate to the System Menu > select Patient Payments.

• Select Unapplied Credit Management tab.
  • Here you can view a list of patients with unapplied credits.

Manage Filters

• Patient lists can be filtered using different types of filters such as Payment Date, Payment Location, and Applied Filters.
  • All unapplied credits will be listed according to the selected Date, Location, and Filters.

a. Select the Payment Date.

• You can manage the unapplied credits for every week, select WTD (Week to Date).
• Similarly, you can choose MTD (Month to Date) to manage unapplied credits for every month. Other options are YTD (Year to Date), Last 6 Months, Last 1 Month, Last 14 Days, and Last 7 Days.
• Choose a custom date if you need to track unapplied credits for a specific timeline.

b. Select the Payment Location.

c. Set Applied Filters with the intended criteria.

• Click Manage Filters to use system-defined filters or custom filters with the intended criteria.

Note: 

• The default filter is 'Credits with Active Patient Balance.' Front of House should review this daily as part of the cashing-up process, and management should review it weekly to ensure payments are being applied correctly.
• There is a knock-on effect if payments are left unapplied at month end and carry over into the next month, as this can affect dentist pay when remuneration is based on applied payments.

• Apart from filtering, you can group and view your list of patient credits in three ways: Patient, Account, or Receipt.

Dashboard Analytics 

Utilise the analytics section to quickly see unapplied credit details for the patient and the account. The dashboard displays the total Unapplied Credits, Pending Allocation, and Over Payments.

•  Take a look at the table below to view the description of the items.

Unapplied Credits	The sum of all unapplied credits for the chosen filter criteria.
Pending Allocation	The sum of the unapplied credits amount that can currently be allocated to an outstanding patient balance.
Over Payments	The sum of unapplied credits amount (excluding Advanced Payments) where there is no patient balance against which this can be posted. Total Unapplied Credits - (Pending Allocation + Advanced Payments) = Over Payments

Note: You can view the amount of Advanced Payments just under the total Unapplied Credits.

Let's look at an example to analyse the unapplied credits dashboard. Refer to the screenshot below.

• Unapplied Credits: This is the sum of all unapplied credits for the chosen filter criteria.
  • You will see that the total Unapplied Credits for the selected criteria is £39,588.08.
• Pending Allocation: This is the sum of the amount that has been collected but is pending to be allocated for the treatment.
  • You can only apply the Pending Allocation amount of £2,106.91 which is the dollar amount corresponding to the treatment available for the patient.

Note: When it comes to pending allocation, patient(s) can have both balances or credits.

• Over Payments: This is the sum of the amount that has been collected, but there is no treatment yet against which this can be posted.
  • It can either be refunded or used for future treatments because there is no current patient balance.
    • The Advanced Payments of £355.50 and the Pending Allocation of £2,106.91 are deducted from the remaining amount to become £37,336.17 which is the Over Payments that do not have any treatments to be posted to.

• You can view the list at the Patient, Account, or Receipt level.

Note: When you Group By Receipt, you cannot view the data for Pending Allocation and Over Payments.

• Hover over the information icons to view the criteria for Patient/Account Unapplied Credits, Patient/Account Balance, and Net Patient Balance while the Grouping is set to Patient or Account.

Bulk Post Unapplied Credits

You can bulk post unapplied credits to all or selected patients.

a) Post Credits to All Patients

• To post all credits for all patients on the list, click Post All Credits after selecting all criteria.
• This will reduce the Pending Allocation figure provided at the top.

Or,

b) Post Credits to Selected Patients

• Select the intended patients from the list and click Post Selected Credits.
• This will also reduce the Pending Allocation figure provided at the top.

On the Post Credits pop-up,

• You can view the total No. of Patients and the Posting Credits Worth of the selected patients.
  • The No. of Patients that should avail post credit.
  • The Posting Credits worth is the total unapplied credits to be posted for the selected number of patients.

Configure the following settings to batch post unapplied credits:

• Post Credits to*: Choose whether the unapplied credits should be posted to Patient or Account Balance.
• Apply to*: Choose the preference for either Oldest First or Newest First.
• Payment Location Preference*: Choose the preference for Payment Location or All Locations.
  • This is only visible if the Payment Location Warning feature is turned on.
• Remarks: Add any remarks, if needed.
• Click Post Credits.

• A toast notification will appear on the top-right stating, 'Batch Posting Initiated'.

• You can also obtain a quick status of the ongoing Batch Posting near the Post All Credits button.

• Click Batch Posting History to see the history of all posted batches and ongoing batch posting.
  • This history shows each batch, the Show filters Criteria, and the ability to View Results of each batch.

• When the Batch Post is successful, the Status updates to Completed.
• You can view the Credits Before Posting and Credits After Posting.
• To get an overview of the Credits Posted, click View Results on the Completed line item.

• Click Show Filter Criteria to see what filters were used before posting the batch.

Other Actions to Manage Unapplied Credits

• You can perform actions such as Adjust off, Refund, and Post Credits on individual line items.

• By selecting any of these actions, the patient payment slide-out will open to Manage Credits. All three actions are preselected based on your previous choice.

Let's check out some scenarios where you can perform suitable line-level actions.

a) No Pending Allocation (Suggested Action: Refund)

Here, some patients have £0 Pending Allocation which means no unapplied credits can be posted for them.

• In this scenario, click Refund on the intended line item to refund the credits.

• The button will direct you to the Refund tab on the Manage Credits section.
• Select the Receipt(s) and enter the Refund Amount and other mandatory information.
• Click Refund and Print to complete the process and print a copy.

b) Available Pending Allocation (Suggested Action: Post Credits)

In such a scenario, when the patient has available Pending Allocation that can be posted.

• Click Post Credits to independently post the unapplied credits.

• The button will direct you to the Manage Credits section.
• Select the intended Code(s) and Receipt(s).
• Click Apply Payments.

c) Available Over Payments (Suggested Action: Refund or Adjust Off)

In this scenario, the patient has Over Payments without any treatment against which they can be posted.

• Click Adjust Off to reduce the unapplied credit. Please check your state laws to determine when you can Adjust Off a credit instead of Refunding the Patient.

• The button will direct you to the Adjust Off tab in the Manage Credits screen.
• Select the intended Codes and enter the Adjust Off Amount.
• Click Adjust-off. The adjusted-off amount will be deducted from the overpayments.

• To download the selected list of patients with unapplied credits, click Download and select the output (PDF or CSV).

Configure UCM Permissions For Your Practice

Perform the steps below to set permissions for UCM.

• Navigate to the System Menu > select Practice Settings > Administration > Profiles.

• Click Manage Permissions for the required user profile.

• Select Billing from the left, then check the relevant boxes under Patient Payments to turn on the following UCM permissions:
  • Unapplied Credit Management (UCM) and Batch Posting: This will activate the UCM feature and batch posting ability for your practice.
  • Add/Edit Unapplied Credit Management filter: Select this permission to allow users to add or edit UCM filters.
  • Delete Unapplied Credit Management filter: Select this permission to allow users to delete UCM filters.

Tip: Hover over the 'i' icon near each permission setting to see what happens when it is enabled.

• Click Save.

• A Confirm Action pop-up will appear stating, 'As you are trying to update profile permissions, all users under this profile would be logged out from their current sessions. Do you want to proceed?'.
  • Click Yes to proceed.

Practices can use this guide to learn how to efficiently utilise the Unapplied Credit Management feature.

Related Articles

• System Defined Filters for Unapplied Credit Management