There are multiple reasons for choosing to write off a contract, but the first example we will use is the patient is stopping treatment but not being refunded on the Responsibly Party ledger tab.
Prior to beginning this exercise, one should be familiar with how to do an Adjustment within Cloud 9.
From the Responsible Party tab of the ledger, Select the horizontal arrows icon near the upper right of the ledger screen. This will open the Post Adjustment window.
Verify the correct patient and Responsible Party from the top down. If the Responsible Party Field is filled, the Insurance Field will show (None), and vice versa. A grayed-out Contract Field indicates either multiple contracts—requiring selection via the magnifying glass—or no contract. If the Contract Field is empty, the Contract Adjustment Field will also be gray and inaccessible.
Before writing off the balance, ensure any balance is moved from Future Due to Due Now. If you attempt to write off on the Contract Adjustment line, it will appear as a Contract Adjustment instead of a Write Off. For accurate reporting, transfer any Future Due balance to Due Now before proceeding. In this example, you need to write off the $5,000.00 remaining amount of the contract, so first transfer the $5,000.00 from Future Due to Due Now. The adjustment will appear as follows:
After you save the adjustment, a message will pop up to inform you that you have changed the contract and may need to edit it. Click 'Okay' on this pop-up. Then, when the contract screen appears, select the contract and click 'Edit.' This will allow you to ensure that all dates and charge amounts are correct in the contract, if needed. (This occurs anytime you make a contract adjustment.)
Open the Balance Adjustment Screen and select 'Write off' for the Adjustment Type. Review the Before Adjustment and After Adjustment sections side by side. The Before Adjustment shows your current ledger, while the After Adjustment will initially match it until you start entering details in the Adjustment Details section.
Next, enter the amount you wish to write off in the Due Now field. In this example, we will only write off the Due Now amount so it will be -$5,000 that we enter in the Due Now for Write Off. This can be expressed with a negative sign in front of the number or by placing the number in parentheses. (Note: If you enter it -5000.00, the system will automatically change it to (5,000.00), this is normal.)
Observe that the After Adjustment section shows the amount has been removed from the Due Now field, indicating the post-adjustment appearance.
Review the After Adjustment section. If the Due Now, Contract Future Due, and Total Due fields reflect your intended values, you've entered the numbers correctly. If not, adjust them in the Adjustment Details section. A comment is also required to save and exit this screen.
You have successfully written off the Responsible Party's remaining contract portion. Now, let's consider an example where we need to write off the entire contract amount and adjust for a refund to the Responsible Party. The balance is already in the Due Now tab for both the Responsible Party and Insurance Ledger. Always begin with the correct ledger tab for writing off amounts.
In this example, we want to write off the entire amount of the contract so we can refund for payments already received. So for the Responsible party ledger tab, we will write off the entire plan amount of $2,500.00. The Write Off Adjustment will look like this:
Notice that there is a credit balance sitting on the account. This matches the amount of payment(s) received from the Responsible Party, and now you can do a refund balance adjustment to reflect the refund check that was sent to them. The Refund adjustment is positive and brings the account balance back to zero and will look like this:
The Responsible party ledger tab write off and refund is complete. Since you now need to remove the money from the insurance tab of the ledger, switch to that tab. Select the adjustment icon in the upper right of the ledger. The Insurance hasn't made any payments yet and the balance is already in the Due Now, so we just have to enter the Write Off Adjustment for the full plan amount of $2,500.00 that will look like this:
Since no payments are made, the Write off brings the ledger tab balance back to zero. This contract has now been successfully written off and zeroed out for the patient in its entirety.
As always, if you have any further questions please do not hesitate to reach out to Cloud 9 Support by emailing us at cloud9support@planetdds.com, or chatting us online using the chat bubble on the lower right at https://cloud9support.planetdds.com/hc/en-us, or giving us a call during our business hours of 8:00 AM EST to 8:00 PM EST at the 1.800.394.6050 option 2.