5 Best Practices to Track Treatment and Payment With your Vision Membership Plan
The key to tracking membership plan treatmentsand payments is separating the two. Fees paid for membership plans should be posted in a dummy patient account, once a month when you receive your payout. This revenue should be counted separately from treatment rendered or material sales.
Below are five best practices to help track treatment and payment, as well as safeguard your membership plan - and your vision practice.
1. Create “insurances” in your PMS that mirror each membership plan you’ve created.
When a patient signs up for a membership plan, attach the appropriate “insurance” to their account in your practice management software. Any services that are 100% included in your membership plan should be assigned a rate of $0.00. This means that when that service is completed for a patient with your membership plan, the team won’t need to adjust off the balance at checkout.
This best practice reduces the need for manual adjustments. Fewer manual adjustments mean less opportunity for error. More importantly, it means less work!
2. Factor material sales separately and apply discounts as needed.
When the patient purchases eyewear, charge the full amount to their account within your PMS, and then adjust the membership plan discount accordingly. This allows you to track all patients that are on the plans and look at the utilization as needed.
3. Limit payment types so plans can auto-renew
Accepting cash, check, or credit card payments for the membership plans, and processing these payments in your office rather than on the VisionHQ portal leaves your practice open to the risk of fraud or embezzlement. Plus doing it this way means that VisionHQ isn’t storing the payment info on file, and you’ll need to chase your patient down again for payment info when it’s time to renew. The VisionHQ portal can accept payments in the form of credit card, debit card, HSA or FSA cards. Direct ACH payments will work too. Patients can choose to pay this way if you allow them to enroll themselves on your plans. This way their bank account number and routing account number isn’t shared with your team. If in-office (cash or check) payments must be taken, implement significant oversight in the process.
With VisionHQ, the practice owner receives an email every time an in-office transaction occurs.
4. Reconcile membership payments monthly with a dummy account.
You receive a payout report each month. This report contains the total dollar amount that hit your bank account, in addition to details of each patient transaction. Create a dummy patient account in your PMS. (First name: Vision, Last name: HQ) Post a bulk charge on the 1st of each month to the dummy account, and post the bulk payment for the same amount that hit the bank. This way, you can account for the revenue from VisionHQ and membership plans appropriately in your PMS. Remember to review your Payout Reports to ensure the numbers match your bank deposit!
5. Verify the patient’s status before providing treatment.
To determine if a patient is VisionHQ eligible at the time of service, launch the VisionHQ platform, click on your members tab, and search for your patient by name. Note the color of the dot and indicated status type. If it’s green, you’re good to go! If it’s any other color, click into the patient account to find out more info. You’ll want to perform this quick and easy verification check, ensuring your patient is eligible to receive discounts and benefits.
The point here is to prevent non-members from receiving free or discounted services accidentally.