Invoice Management: Quick Guide

Introduction

Accurate and efficient invoicing is an essential part of managing both patient accounts and practice finances. MediRecords provides a comprehensive set of invoicing tools designed to handle a wide range of billing scenarios - from standard patient invoices to more specialised requirements such as telehealth invoicing, billing for anaesthetic or diagnostic imaging services, and billing organisations.

This guide will walk you through the full invoicing process, including how to view outstanding invoices, create an invoice, add a referral to an invoice,create a payment against an on hold invoice, and process private invoicing. It also covers important workflows such as invoicing for a deceased patient, cloning or deleting an invoice, printing or re-printing, and exporting invoices.

Whether you’re billing directly to patients, processing Medicare or DVA claims, or invoicing external organisations, this article provides step-by-step instructions to ensure accuracy, compliance, and efficiency across all aspects of financial management in MediRecords.

Contents:

1. Viewing Outstanding Invoices
2. Creating an Invoice
3. Telehealth Invoicing
4. Adding a Referral to an Invoice
5. Cloning an Invoice
6. Deleting an Invoice
7. Printing / Re-Printing an Invoice
8. Exporting Invoices
9. Related Reading

Viewing Outstanding Invoices

1. Navigate to the Sales dashboard (Select Accounts at left side of the screen, then Sales)
   
2. Debtors displayed in 4 circular graphs; Total Outstanding, 0-30 Days past due, 30-60 days past due, 60 + days past due.
    
3. Select the stage you would like to view
4. Filter by Unpaid, Partially Paid and time period
   
   
    

The Sales Dashboard displays displays a list of outstanding payments for Companies, Patients, Medicare and DVA invoices.

Creating an Invoice 

There are several types of invoices that you can create in MediRecords. 

You may wish to also refer to the following articles:

• Patient Claims - Medicare, DVA & ECLIPSE: Quick Guide
• Bulk Billing - Medicare & DVA
• Manual Invoicing - Medicare, DVA & ECLIPSE: Quick Guide
• Private Invoicing: Quick Guide

The instructions below cover the most common invoicing workflow involving a Patient Claim.

1. Open the patient record
2. Click Accounts
3. Click Invoices
4. Click New Invoice to open the invoice form
   
    
5. Click Bill To and select Patient
6. Click the Print Medicare Claim tick-box
7. The Total is the total amount due for the services
8. The GAP is the amount that the patient will be out-of-pocket after the Medicare rebate
9. Click Quick Pay to reveal a set of quick payment options below
10. Make sure Online Patient Claiming is selected
    
     
11. Make sure the patient is paying the Full Amount 
12. Select the Payment Method (i.e. Cash)
13. Click Pay and Claim to submit the claim to Medicare
    
     
14. Claims may take around 10 to 15 seconds to process, which is dependent on the speed of your connection and the load on the Medicare server
15. Once the claim is processed, you will be returned to the Invoice list
16. The Invoice will open on a tab within your web browser
17. Depending on your internet settings, you may need to "Allow pop-ups" from MediRecords
18. Print the Invoice and give it to the patient

NOTE: Specialists and other providers who see patients on a referral basis will need to include a referral on the invoice. Valid Referrals will appear as a drop-down option below the provider

Telehealth Invoicing

To invoice a patient for Telehealth services, a new Standard or Multi-Patient Invoice will need to be generated. After providing the Patient and Provider details, select the Payor (Bill to) and Schedule.

Enter all item codes that you wish to bill the patient for. To add multiple items, use the Add Item button.

Click the Telehealth Service Tick-Box to generate an applicable telehealth item code with a fee appropriate for the services billed. This can be removed by clicking the Tick-Box a second time.

Proceed to Claim or Payment based on the type of invoice rendered. 

Adding a Referral to an Invoice

Patients require referrals to access specialists and consultant physicians for treatment. In most cases referral information must be included alongside private patient accounts and bulk bill/DVA accounts. 

They must include: 

• Relevant clinical information about the patient’s condition for investigation, opinion, treatment, and/or management
• The date of the referral, and
• The signature of the referring practitioner

1. Create an Invoice
2. From the referral drop-down list select a referral created from the patient demographic
   
   
    
3. If a referral hasn't been created, one can be added by clicking the + icon to right of the field.
4. Complete the required fields.

i. The Referred By field is the referring doctor and is checked against Health Professionals Contact information. If the contact doesn't exist (because the referring doctor has not referred to the practice before) the contact can be created by clicking on the + icon next to the field.
ii. Complete the new contact form with all the required details
iii. Click Save to create the new contact

1. Only valid referrals will be available from the drop-down list. To be a valid referral, the referral must be in-date, and the Referred To and Provider fields must match.
2. Once the referral has been selected via the drop-down list it is ready to be submitted alongside the referral details.

Cloning an Invoice

Please note: When cloning invoices all details will remain the same including invoice dates, and service dates, only the invoice number will be updated automatically. 

First, navigate to the Invoice that you would like to clone by selecting the Patient Record,  Accounts, then Invoices

Select the check box next to the invoice you would like to clone, then select More followed by Clone Invoice. 

A new invoice pop-up will generate, this invoice is identical to the original invoice apart from the invoice number which has been updated. All fields on this cloned invoice can be updated and adjusted, then finalized as per your usual process. 

Deleting an Invoice

You will not be able to delete an invoice unless the status is "On Hold". This means if an invoice is Unpaid, Partially Paid, Adjusted, or Paid it cannot be deleted. 

Why is it like this?

1. To maintain Industry Standards - It is not standard practice to delete any invoice that has already been 'issued' to a payer. There are proper procedures to be followed to remove a finalised invoice.
2. To avoid issues with account reconciliation and other financial reports.

How can I get rid of unwanted or no longer-needed invoices?

If the invoice is still On Hold, it is considered to be in a 'draft' state and is not yet regarded as confirmed or 'finalised'. This draft invoice can be deleted since it is not finalised and will have no effect on reports if deleted at this stage. 

When an invoice is finalised, and payment is now expected, the status of the invoice should be Unpaid, i.e. Printed and handed to the person/entity expected to pay. 

In the event that this invoice is no longer expected to be paid, the correct process is to conduct a Write Off with a reason as to why we are no longer expecting payment. 

If an invoice has been Paid or Partially Paid and, for some reason, the money is being returned to the payer, the correct process is to Refund the payment with a reason. 

If a new payment on this invoice is not expected, the correct process, again, is to Write Off the invoice with a reason. 

These processes ensure that Refunds are recorded on the Refund Report, and Write Offs are captured correctly on the Provider Billing Activity Report. 

Printing / Re-Printing an Invoice

1. From within the patient's record, click Accounts
2. Make sure you are in the "Invoices" section  
3. Tick the checkbox next to the name of the invoice
4. Click Print to open up a printable copy
   
   

Exporting Invoices

To Download multiple invoices, simply select the invoices by ticking the checkboxes to enable the Download button. This will download the invoices individually in PDF format.

Related Reading

• Bulk Billing - Medicare & DVA: Quick Guide
• Patient Claims - Medicare, DVA & ECLIPSE: Quick Guide
• Manual Invoicing - Medicare, DVA & ECLIPSE: Quick Guide
• Private Invoicing: Quick Guide
• Organisation Billing: Quick Guide