If you have ever had Medicare contact you and query an invoice, you may know that the processes of locating the relevant invoice and items within can be rather tedious. The Account History area conveniently organises all invoices linked to a patient and/or relevant Account Holder in one simple window! Gone are the days of having to look through your files to try and locate one invoice. This article covers how the Account History window works as well as how you can use it to find the information you need.
Before you begin
The Account History window is the area that lists a patient’s or an organisation’s billing history. This window can be viewed by selecting Billing > Account History from either the Patient List, The Appointment Book, or the Account Holders list. Alternatively, you can access this by pressing Ctrl+H (Windows) or Cmd+H (Macintosh).
This window lists all invoices on the left with the account holder name shown in bold text. It also shows the date the invoice was generated along with the invoice number.
You will also notice another area in this window titled Payments. This is where you can see all payments/credits/discounts receipted against the relevant invoice along with if the patient has any deposits. In addition to giving you an overall reference of the invoices generated for the patient and/or organisation, you can also re-transmit ECLIPSE claims, patient claims, and even readdress invoices entirely.
The invoices that populate within this column are linked to the relevant organisation or patient. The account holder name will be shown here in bold along with the date the invoice was generated and the invoice number. To see which items are in an invoice you will need to highlight this from within the column to have the items attached to that invoice populate within the window to the right. Alternatively, you can also double click on the invoice to open the invoice window. From within this window, you can edit the invoice by double clicking on the relevant invoice on the left hand side. For further information about editing invoices, please see the Correcting Invoicing and Receipting Errors article.
When highlighting an invoice from the Invoices column, a list of all items associated with that invoice will be displayed to the right. The grid view on the right hand side of this window provides a quick summary of the items associated with the highlighted invoice.
- Date: This area displays the Service date for the item
- Provider: This area displays the provider that performed the service. Assistants will have (assist) appear next to their name
- Patient: This area lists the name of the patient who was billed the item
- Item: This area lists the item that was billed to the patient
- Fee: This area lists the total fee charged to the patient for the item, including the Gap amount (if applicable). Slowly-double click under this column to modify the fee for a given item.
- Payment: This area lists the total amount of money receipted against the account identified as a payment (0-Payment). This can be receipted as either a Direct Deposit, Cash, Eftpos, Credit Card, Fund Cheque, Personal Cheque, or Medicare Cheque
- Discount: This area lists the amount discounted for the particular item. Slowly-double click under this column to apply a discount to an item.
- Credit: This area list the amount of credit applied to an item. Slowly-double click under this column to apply a credit to an item.
- Balance: This area shows the total amount outstanding for the particular item.
From within the Account History window, you can also access the Sales window by double clicking on the items, which is useful when troubleshooting exceptions and other issues related to ECLIPSE and Medicare claims.
The Payments area within the Account History window allows you to review what payments have been made against items within the invoice. You can reprint the receipt(s) for the specific payment by selecting it and clicking Print. If the payments in this window were allocated via the receipting process in ECLIPSE, receipts for all patients paid on the same remittance will print out. There are six columns in the Payment area:
- Type: This refers to the type of payment applied to an invoice. These are listed as 0-Payment, 1-Deposit, 2-Credit, and 3-Discount
- Invoice: The invoice number the payment was applied to. Deposits are listed as 0 as they have not been applied to an invoice yet
- Date: The date that the payment was receipted against the invoice
- Provider: The provider that performed the service
- Form: The form of payment taken and/or the reason for the Discount and Credit
- Amount: The amount that was receipted against the account.
You can also delete payments from this area. For more information on this, please refer to the Deleting Payments and Invoices article.
As well as displaying the patient's or organisations billing history, you can use the Account History window to print and edit billing information, re-send online claims, and perform a number of other processes. Most of this functionality is performed using the different buttons and icons found at the top of the account history window.
The Printer icon 
will allow you to print an invoice after first selecting it. If the invoice is a bulk bill or DVA invoice, then a DB4/DVA claim form will print, assuming your Printing Preferences are configured to do so. For more information about the Printing Preferences, please refer to the Printers article.
The Trash Can icon 
will allow you to delete an invoice after first selecting it. For more information about this, please see the Deleting Payments and Invoices article.
The Change the Account Holder/Patient icon 
will allow you to readdress the patient and/or account holder linked to the invoice. This is handy if an invoice was generated for the wrong patient or account holder, or an invoice needs to be readdressed to a different Account Holder for the remaining balance to be paid.
Statement
This option will allow you to print a statement off for the items that were billed in the invoice. To do this, highlight the relevant invoice(s) on the left hand side of the Account History, and then highlight the items that you would like to include in the statement on the right by Ctrl+clicking on each item before clicking the 
button. It is worth noting you can only print a statement for invoices belonging to the same account holder.
Print Report
The Print Report button prints out a transaction summary of all transactions related to the highlighted item(s). To do this, highlight the relevant invoice(s) on the left hand side of the Account History, and then highlight the items that you would like to include in the statement on the right by Ctrl+clicking on each item then click the 
button.
Find Batch
The 
button is only available if you are reviewing the Account History of an organisational account holder via Open > Account Holders. This button allows you to search for items submitted in batches (either through ECLIPSE or Medicare Online). This is useful if you are trying to identify the batch certain items are linked to.
Reset
The 
button allows you to unselect everything that is currently selected (highlighted) within the Account History window.
Create Patient Claim
The 
button allows you to create a new patient claim. For more information about this area, please see our article on Creating Patient Claims.
Delete Patient Claim
If you would like to retract a real-time patient claim after it has been submitted to Medicare, select the item(s) and click on the 
button. If the claim can be deleted, you will be prompted to enter in a reason. Please note that patient claims can only be deleted this way if they were transmitted on the same day, if it is any later, the claim has likely been processed already. If this occurs, you can contact Medicare to try to cancel this, although it may be the case that only the patient can cancel the claim.
Show Outstanding
Selecting the 
button will highlight all invoices and items that have an outstanding balance. It will also simultaneously highlight all invoices with outstanding balances within the Invoices column. The total balance of the displayed items will be displayed at the top of the Account History window.
Itemised Receipt
The 
button will allow you to print an itemised receipt. To do this, you will have to have the relevant invoice selected and highlight the items you want to print the receipt for. The receipt will print details of the method and date of any payments made against the selected items that were highlighted.
Resend IMC Exceptions
The 
button will allow you to resend IMC exceptions though ECLIPSE. For more information on this, please refer to the article on How to Deal with ECLIPSE Exceptions.
Depending on what information you are trying to find, you may wish to access the patient's Account History directly via the patient's Account Holder window, opposed to their Patient record.
What is the difference?
When opening the Account history window for a patient via their patient record this will show all invoices linked to that patient, regardless of who the Account Holder is. If you want to see the overall picture of all invoices linked to your patient, including any invoices the patient's Health Fund or third party organisations may have paid, then you are best to access their Account History via their patient record.
When opening the Account history window for a patient via their Account holder record, this will only show Invoices directly linked to that patient's Account Holder. This will typically be invoices created for the patient using the 
button in the invoicing window but may also include invoices for other patients whom this patient has acted as the Account Holder for. You will most commonly see this when you have multiple members of the same family attending your practice, and one member is the designated account holder for the family. If you want to only see invoices that are linked to a patient's Account Holder record, then you are best to review their Account History directly via the Account Holder record. You might find this method useful for when a patient needs a print out of all their private invoices.