Prepayment accounting question

blatta wrote on Thursday, March 12, 2015:

From time to time we might be paid for services that have not yet been performed, but will nevertheless be specifically referable to an eventual service (e.g., prepayment for the patient’s portion of a surgery or a surgical co-pay paid the week prior to the actual service). Is there an accepted way to account for this? If, for example, the patient were to be in the office for a preoperative visit then there would be an encounter on that day and the fee could be added somehow to that encounter, although it would be preferable if it were not attributed specifically to the preoperative visit. On the other hand, it is entirely possible that there might not be a specific patient encounter (perhaps a parent might come in without the child specifically for the purpose of delivering the payment). What would one do in that case? Create an encounter just for the purpose of accepting the payment? If so, does it have to be entered into the calendar? And also, to what eventual service and how is the payment to be spread if the service doesn’t exit yet? How does one account for “pending” services. Ideally, payments should show up in the daysheets for the day on which they are posted - not just as an “unapplied” payments that don’t show up in the daily receipts.

Also, how does one handle payments not attributable to services rendered to specific patients? A hospital stipend for ER call coverage would be a good example. The check has been delivered and is there in the office ready for deposit, but to what is it to be attributed? My sense is that one should simply set up a “dummy CPT code” (00001, 00002, etc.) for the purpose of “call coverage” and/or other such things against which we can apply the payment and then to create “patient accounts” in the names of the payers (in this case the hospital divisions responsible for payment). Am I missing something? Is there an easier way?