Summary
Cloud 9 now offers stronger control over Financial Arrangements, Contracts, and Post Charges to help maintain accuracy and prevent errors. By default, certain fields within Financial Arrangements—and within Contracts that are linked to Financial Arrangements—are locked to avoid unintended changes. Similarly, the Amount field in the Post Charges process is also locked by default. New permissions have been introduced so that authorized users can still edit these fields when necessary. This added layer of control helps prevent accidental updates that could create inconsistencies between Financial Arrangements and Contracts, ultimately improving billing accuracy and reducing the risk of errors. This article will review these new changes and override permissions.
Financial Arrangements
When a Financial Arrangement is created, the UCR, Contracted Amount, and Insurance Amounts (both primary and secondary) fields are now locked by default. This means those amounts cannot be changed unless a user has the correct permission. They will appear as grayed out boxes with the amounts automatically filled in.
If the user has the 'Override Financial Arrangement Locks' permission enabled, that would allow them to edit the locked UCR, Contract Amount, or Insurance Amount boxes on the Financial Arrangement.
Contracts Associated with Financial Arrangements
When a contract is associated to a Financial Arrangement the Initial Claim field is auto-populated with the UCR value from the Financial Arrangement that is now locked by default. Additionally, the Treatment Fee Amount, Charge Type lookup, and Discount Type lookup fields are also now locked by default. These fields are not locked if a Contract is not associated to a Financial Arrangement.
If the user has the 'Override Contract Locks' permission enabled, that would allow them to edit the locked contract fields even when they originated from an Financial Arrangement.
Post Charges
The Amount field in the Post Charges process is locked by default. When you click to 'Post Charge' on a patient's ledger, the amount will automatically generate and is locked and cannot be edited.
If the user has the 'Override Post Charges Locks' permission enabled, that would allow them to edit the locked amount for Post Charges.
Enforce Financial Arrangements Toggle
There is a new setting that can be found in Edit > Practice Information > Options Tab that is called 'Enforce Financial Arrangements.' When this is toggled on in Practice Information, contracts will now need to be associated to a Financial Arrangement when the contract is created. Previously, the contract could be created and only required to be associated to a Financial Arrangement in order to start the contract. Now, if this setting is toggled on, a contract cannot be started without a signed Financial Agreement. If a user attempts to start a new contract without that pre-requisite and this setting turned on, they will get an error that says, 'Start Contract - Error. A signed financial arrangement is needed before starting the contract.' Screenshot below.
For more information on financial arrangements, please see THIS ARTICLE.
Administrators should review the new override permissions and assign them to appropriate employee types. The 'Override Financial Arrangement Locks', 'Override Contract Locks', and 'Override Post Charge Locks' permissions are enabled by default for existing employees and employee types.
For the 'Enforce Financial Arrangements' toggle, administrators should determine if they want to move to only Financial Arrangements, or if they are already only using Financial Arrangements, toggle this setting on if they do not want any other contract types started.
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.