Account Holders

Creating an account holder for a patient - Self

If a patient is going to be their own account holder, you can simply open their demographics and select "Self" in the account holder section. Genie will automatically fill in the relevant details in the account holder record based on the demographics record.

Creating an account holder for a patient - Other

If you need to bill for a patient who is not responsible for their own accounts, such as a minor, you would firstly need to determine if the parent/guardian who is responsible for the account is a patient at your practice as well.

If the account holder is a patient

In the demographics window of the patient, click on the "Other" option in the account holder section. In the search box that appears, search for the account holder patient in your Genie database.

If the parent/guardian has not yet been added as a patient, you will need to firstly create them the same way you created the minor patient, ensuring that "Self" is ticked in the account holder section to create an account holder record for them that you can then search for in the paragraph above.

If the account holder is not a patient

If the account holder (e.g. parent/guardian) is not currently and will not be a patient at your practice, you can instead choose "Self" in the account holder section of your patient's demographics. Click into the box in the account holder section and this will open the Account Holder record.

You can then replace the patient's details here with those of their parent/guardian.

Creating an account holder for an organisation

If you are creating an account holder for an organisation, simply navigate to Open > Account Holders and cancel out of the search window. Click the blue plus icon and you will be presented with a new account holder window where you can enter in the appropriate details.

The account holder records for Medicare and DVA are special cases. They should already be present in the Account Holders list. For these records the names must always be Medicare and Dept of Veterans Affairs, respectively. Any change to this can cause problems with your invoicing and financial reporting. It is also important that no new account holder records are created with the same names.

When Genie is launched, it searches for these two records and stores their unique Account ID numbers in Practice Preferences > Details as shown below:

Whenever you send an invoice to either of these records, they are automatically batched and a DB4 form is printed instead of an ordinary invoice.

If you would like to print a DB4 form, you must ensure that you have Medicare DB4 selected in File > Printing Preferences

If you would like to send an ordinary invoice to the Dept of Veterans Affairs, you must firstly create a new account holder record via Open > Account Holders and name it anything BUT "Dept of Veterans Affairs".

Accessing the account history for patients

If your account holder is a person, you can simply highlight their name in the patient list (Open > Patients) or the appointment book, then navigate to Billing > Account History.

This will open their account history window where you can view all invoices assigned to their account holder record.

Accessing the account history for organisations

If your account holder is an organisation, navigate to Open > Account Holders. Search for the Account Holder and highlight the relevant record. Go to Billing > Account History and from here you can view all invoices in which this organisation is the Account Holder.

Unlike patient records, there is no direct way to merge account holder records. You can, however, achieve the desired outcome by following the steps below:

1. Navigate to Open > Accounts Holders and search for the account holders you wish to merge (e.g. if you wish to merge two account holders named John Smith, search for this name);
2. Highlight one of the records and navigate to Billing > Account History. Quickly glance at how many invoices are attached to the account, then do the same for the other/s to determine which account has the least amount of invoices associated to the account and which has the most;
3. For the record with the most, this will be the account holder record that we want to keep. Double-click on this account holder and modify the name field slightly to differentiate it from the account with the least. For example:
   

   Current account holder name	John Smith
   New account holder name	John Smith-Keep

4. Save this account holder window, then highlight the other duplicate account and navigate to Billing > Account History;
5. In this window, we will need to re-address each invoice to the recently updated account holder using the re-address icon in the top-left of the window;
6. Once you have clicked on the re-address icon, click the Change Account Holder button and search for the account holder record that we recently updated (e.g. John Smith-Keep), then click Close after this has been done;
7. Complete these steps for each invoice attached to the duplicate account holder until there are no longer any invoices associated with the duplicate account holder;
8. When there are no invoices associated with this account holder, you can close out of the account history, then click the trash can icon to delete the duplicate account holder record;
9. Once the duplicate has been deleted, double-click on the remaining account holder record (e.g. John Smith-Keep) and rename the account holder back to the correct name (e.g. John Smith).