Authorisation codes can be linked to a sequence of appointments centring on a single complaint. These eligibility codes can be used regardless of the patient’s default payer. For example, an insurer may provide 5 appointments for rehabilitating physio - Let’s follow through this example.
Begin by searching for a patient and opening this patient’s home page. Check on the ‘Personal Details’ page to make sure this user has an insurance company and charge band set, if not, set one here and return to the patient home page.
Assuming the eligibility section is included in your layout (if it is not, go to the ‘Changing the Layout’ section of this manual) click the ‘New Authorisation’ button to bring up the new authorisation dialogue.
Give the new authorisation a descriptive name such as ‘Rehabilitation’. Use the ‘Code’ field to define the authorisation code (This can be any string of numbers or digits and will be supplied by the insurer or patient).
The payer can be set here to either employer or insurer (assuming the patient has both of these listed in their personal details), we’ll be selecting insurer here. A diagnosis can be used to string all the cases together and also sent to Healthcode if this is part of your system setup (See the Healthcode section in this manual for more). I’ll be using ‘Sciatic Nerve Damage’.
The ‘Credits’ section to the right hand side let’s you define how many credits the patient is allowed ( and therefore how many appointments), for continuity, we will pick 5 here. You can state whether any of these have already been used by filling in how many credits remain, alternatively, leave this blank.
The final field within the credits section is expiry date, after this date all authorisation codes shall become invalid. You may also include any notes you wish with these authorisations in the notes field. Once saved you will see your new authorisation code along with how many credits remain in the eligibility box.
With the authorisation now prepared, we can book an appointment (See ‘Appointments’ for more information regarding the booking processes). Upon reaching the service picker page as shown below you will notice the ‘Authorisation Code’ box - clicking here will bring up all the authorisation codes available to this patient.
Selecting the code will change the payer and the charge band allowing the patient to receive the treatment required.
Once a booking has been made and an authorisation code has been used you will find the consultation will contain a case ‘Rehabilitation’. All appointments made with this authorisation will appear under this case automatically. Return to the patient page and view the authorisation code.
You will find the remaining credits have fallen to 4 and the ‘Allocated’ section now links to the appointment in which this credit was used. Once all authorisations are used they will become hidden from the ‘Eligibility box on the patient home page. To view exhausted authorisation codes click the ‘Show All’ button within this box.