With all the patients that come in and out of your practice, it can be difficult to keep track of who is responsible for each person's invoices. To ensure you can send your invoices to the right person or organisation without the messy notes, Genie has the Account Holder record.
Before you begin
- All patients that you intend to bill for will need an Account Holder. All Account Holders for patients must be a human being. While an organisation can be an Account Holder in it’s own right, you cannot link an organisation as the Account Holder for a patient.
- You can review the Account Holder for a patient by opening the patient’s Demographics. The Account Holder will either be Self or Other, and the details of the Account Holder will be shown in the adjacent box.
- If you are interested in invoicing an organisation such as a school or law firm, please refer to the Invoicing a Health Fund or Organisation section of our Invoicing article.
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.
Company name / address details | Enter in the account holder name and contact details along with their address, phone number and fax number if applicable. |
Batch Process Invoices | If you would like to batch the invoices for this organisation, tick this option. Batch processing means that instead of sending an individual invoice for each patient contact, the invoices can be stored and printed as a batch at your leisure. The printed batch is a listing of all the invoices stored and can be forwarded with or without the individual invoices attached, depending on the organisation's requirements. |
Charge GST for ALL items | If this box is ticked, Genie will add the GST on top of the fee when billing this account holder. |
Blacklist | Blacklisting an account holder will mean that any patient with this account holder cannot be booked for an appointment. |
Update Balance | The Update Balance button can be used in situations in which a patient's account displays an outstanding balance that you know is not valid. Clicking on the Update Balance button refreshes the account balance for that account holder. |
Account ID | This is a unique identification number for this account holder. This can be used in QuickReports and queries to track down information regarding this account holder. |
Use this schedule when invoicing this organisation / if it's a Private Health Fund | This section tells Genie which fee schedule to use by default when an invoice is created for this account holder. If the account holder record is for a private health fund, you will need to ensure that you select the relevant fee schedule for this fund. |
Multiple Procedure Rule to Employ | This section lets Genie know which multiple procedure rule to employ when invoicing for this account holder. |
Accept Payments via BPAY / Print Sample BPAY Invoice | If you are running Genie v9.0.5 and above, you can use the Print Sample BPAY Invoice button when initially configuring BPAY within your Genie software. If you already have BPAY configured for your practice, you can use the Accept Payments via BPAY checkbox to disable this preference for particular account holders. |
WorkCover Online | As of Genie v8.6.8, the WorkCover Online section will appear in the account holder window for all organisations. |
Medicare and DVA as account holders
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".
Account histories for account holders
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:
- 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);
- 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;
- 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 - Save this account holder window, then highlight the other duplicate account and navigate to Billing > Account History;
- 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;
- 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;
- 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;
- 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;
- 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).
If you are running Genie v9.3.4 and above, you can search for an Account Holder by their BPAY Customer Reference Number. In Open > Account Holders, click the magnifying glass icon then enter in the BPAY CRN to search for the specific Account Holder.