This page will detail how to post a patient refund.

Refunds

A patient refund is a transaction that will be completed when a negative balance, or credit, is present on a patient's account and the amount is to be returned to the patient. This transaction is called a Patient Refund. Patient Refunds are executed as Provider Payments - that is, the provider is paying the money back to the patient. As such, patient refunds will be entered into TRAKnet as a provider payment. Please find below a scenario detailing the steps we will take to perform this patient refund.

Set Up

Before beginning, you will need to add a Payment Type of Patient Refund. To do so, go to Properties > Payment Types > Click "Add." For the description, enter "Patient Refund." Check the box "Use for Provider Payments." Click "Save."

Scenario

In our office, we have Ms. Gordon. Ms. Gordon, on her last visit, dated 6/1, overpaid on her office visit charge. While the total charge was $100, she paid us $150. Ms. Gordon has called and requested she receive the $50 back as a refund.

Locate the Over-Payment

First, we will check our patient's ledger. On our ledger we can see that Ms. Gordon indeed overpaid $50 today on her office visit charge. We can see this in two different places on the ledger:

1. The date of service in question, 6/1, shows the Remaining amount is in (parentheses). This indicates that the amount in the parentheses is a credit, or over-payment.
2. The balance on the bottom of the ledger shows that in the 0-29 date range there is a ($50) credit, also in parentheses, indicating a credit.
   

Now that we have located our over-payment, our next step is going to be taking in a provider payment to indicate we are paying the patient back their $50 credit.

Enter a Provider Payment

This step can be done from several locations:

• The patient's ledger, with the Payment drop-down menu.
• The encounter, on the Payments view, with the payments drop-down menu.
• The Billing Dashboard > Payments screen.

Regardless of where we begin, we will need to select a Provider Payment. If we start our provider payment from the Encounter or Ledger, the patient's name will automatically populate in the search box, as seen in the screenshot to the right of this text. If we begin from the Payments screen, we will need to search for Ms. Gordon by Last Name, First Name.

IMPORTANT When first entering this screen, the search results will not include the line item with the credit. You must uncheck the Positive Balances Only checkbox for our negative balance credit to appear.

Post a Provider Payment

Now that we have located our credit and begun our provider payment, we must post the provider payment. From the search results, select the line item with the credit. Here we have two options:

1. If we are only refunding a partial amount, type in the amount to be refunded into the Amount column, and then click "Add." For example, if Ms. Gordon only wanted $25 back, we could type -25.00 into the Amount column, then press Add. Note: The amount entered must be negative.
2. If we are refunding the entire credit amount, click the "Balance" button. This will enter a negative amount of -50.00, of whatever the entire Balance column is.

In our scenario, Ms. Gordon would like the entire $50 back. We will select the line with the over-payment, then click Balance. We can now see the Applied negative provider payment on the bottom portion of the screen.

Finalize the Provider Payment

Posting the payment is not yet complete, however. To finalize the provider payment we must "Commit Adjustments." Click the "Commit Adjustments" icon in the upper right-hand corner of this window to activate the Payment tab.

On the Payment tab you must enter the following information:

• Date — The date the payment is being made to the patient.
• Type — This should be set to Patient Refund. If you do not have a Patient Refund payment type, check the Payment Types page to learn how to add one.
• Comments — Any comments regarding the refund. In the event of provider payments it is always strongly encouraged to enter the check number and a reasoning for the payment at the minimum.

Once you have entered all information, click "Save" under the Payment tab. Note: After saving, you cannot change the Date Paid or Type. The Amount was locked upon clicking Commit Adjustments, but this cannot be changed, either.

Once finished, click Close.

Check Patient's Ledger

After posting the provider payment, it is advised to check the patient's ledger once more to ensure the credit has been balanced out and the patient balance is now correct.

Credit Card Refund

TSYS

If you are using integrated credit card processing with TRAKnet through TSYS, to refund a patient an amount, you must delete the credit card payment. To do this:

• Go to the Billing Dashboard, then the Payments screen.
• Select the credit card payment.
• Click Remove.
• Enter a reason for the removal, such as patient refund. Click OK.
• The patient payment will be removed and a refund will be issued.

NOTE: Any time a credit card payment is deleted in this manner it will refund the patient automatically.

Open Edge

If you are using integrated credit card processing with TRAKnet through Open Edge, to refund a patient an amount, you must use one of the refund payment types.

• Create a payment for the patient to apply the refund for.
• Enter the amount to be refunded.
• Select the refund payment type.
  • The refund payment type will depend on the payment method used.
    • Debit Refund Independent (Swiping) - Used for payments made by Debit card.
    • Refund Independent (Manual) - Used for payments made by Credit card (swipe or manual)
    • Refund Independent (Swiping) - Used for payments made by Credit card (swipe or manual)
• Process the refund

NOTE: Deleting an Open Edge credit card payment will result in the full amount being refuneded to the patients card.