Charging for services outside of an encounter (forms, no-show fee, etc.)

ptalerico wrote on Thursday, October 27, 2016:

If charging fees for filling out forms, how is everyone handing this using OpenEMR?
I’m reluctant to create an encounter just for the purpose of filling out a form, but it appears the only way to generate charges is from within an encounter.
Even if I do create an encounter and bill some code I created for filling out forms, how do I prevent this charge from being included in the X12 file and going off to the insurers? If I click “Mark as billed,” will the charge be added to the patient’s balance (instead of going to the clearinghouse), or is “Mark as billed” the same as “Paid”?

teryhill wrote on Thursday, October 27, 2016:

I ran into the same issue , my clients bill a charge for things like copying stuff for the patient they use CPT code 1111 for this. I added some code (partly gotten from MI2) to allow the items to be excluded from billing. So now they can exclude any cpt code that they chose for going out in the x12 file.

What version are you on?

Terry

ptalerico wrote on Friday, October 28, 2016:

Thanks, Terry.
I’m using version 4.2.0(4) running on Ubuntu

ptalerico wrote on Monday, October 31, 2016:

That would solve the problem of having the code omitted from the x12 file, but doesn’t that still require an encounter to be created in OEMR?
I’m wondering if a charge can be placed on the patient’s account without the need to generate a new encounter for that date.

teryhill wrote on Monday, October 31, 2016:

Yes it will require an encounter to work with in the current configuration of OpenEMR.

ptalerico wrote on Tuesday, November 01, 2016:

Would you be willing to share the code that allows it to be excluded from the x12 files?

teryhill wrote on Tuesday, November 01, 2016:

No problem message me and I will get a patch ready for it