There are two main types of bulk bill assignment of benefit:
- Pre-Assignment - before Service Date
- Post-Assignment - on/after Service Date
Post-Assignment
Post-Assignment is what most practices will do on a daily basis, and is a simplified process.
When billing, the copies section should be set to 1 (if you set it to 0 you'll get a warning).
Bill as normal and click OK.
Email Assignment
After billing, the first question will be if you want to email the assignment of benefit, rather than print & sign.
This option is useful if the patient isn't physically there.
There is an additional option to pre-fill the signature with the words "EMAIL AGREEMENT" which signify to the patient that they don't need to sign, but should reply to the email as indicated. (Note: this and the default wording of the email is the exact process that Medicare stipulate.)
Signed Assignment
If you elect not to send via email, it will prompt if you want to scan or import the signed copy immediately.
There is also the option to e-sign physically though using stylus/touchpad etc.
Note if you elect not to do this, i.e. if it is signed later, you can import/scan in to the Assignment of Benefit screen and set date agreed, mark it in description, etc.
Screenshots below illustrate the above scenarios.
Billing (Post Assignment)
Print Only (Not Emailed)
Import
E-Sign
Pre-Assignment
Pre-assignment is where you're preemptively requesting assignment of benefit in advance.
Requesting Assignment
Bring up the Patient in the Accounting screen and either go to Reception Menu -> Assignment of Benefit -> Patient Assignment of Benefit List, or Edit Patient -> Assign Ben, or Edit Appointment -> Assign Ben. You will see a screen which is a list of the patient's previous assignment of benefits.
From there you can manually add details, or print or email a DB4 of the assignment which will either prompt you to select an appointment (which may have items already entered), or manually enter item number(s).
Recording Assignment
If the patient has replied via email or brought in the signed form, you can also manually edit the assignment line and untick "Requested Only" and then indicate the date it was assigned though and/or add in description. A reply via email can also constitute record keeping so long as email records are retained.
Billing
Later when billing, the system will find the assignment of benefit record for that service date, and therefore it will not prompt you re "was this verbally agreed to" as it would for post-assignment of benefit.
Later when billing:
Audit/Review
This is the same list as the Pre-Assignment first paragraph; Reception Menu -> Assignment of Benefit -> Patient Assignment of Benefit List, and you can review previous assignments recorded here.
Note that you do not necessarily need to
