Use the Collections Center to help ensure your receivables are paid in a timely manner. This feature gives a centralized location for viewing overdue balances and tracking actions related to pursuing and recovering payments owed.
Enable the Collections Center
The Collections feature is behind an entitlement and requires the ALIS team to enable it. Once enabled, you will be able to access Collections by clicking on the Dashboard icon or Billing dropdown menu if your role provides the permission. For assistance, contact your Account Manager or our ALIS Customer Success Team.
Customize Collection Action Types
When using Collections in ALIS, you can track specific types of actions taken to follow up with payers regarding their outstanding balances. When Collections is enabled for your company, you have an ALIS auto-generated list of action types to choose from. However, you can add new action types and disable many of these to align with your company's collections practices.
Collection Action Types are managed in Company Settings. If you do not have access to these settings, reach out to your company administrator. If you are a company administrator and would like assistance, contact your Account Manager or our ALIS Customer Success Team.
Follow the below steps to customize your Collection Action Types:
- Go to Settings > Company. Locate the Collection Action Types section.
- To add a new Action Type, click the blue +Add New button. In the pane that appears, type the name of the action. Adding a new Action type in settings creates a new option in the Action Type dropdown menu in the Collections Center. See the below Actions section for more details.
- To disable any existing auto-generated options, click the Disable button on the far right side of the item. It is important to note that you cannot disable the "Emailed Invoice" or "Emailed Statement" options as these are automated based on completion in other parts of ALIS.
How to use the Collections Center
The Collections Center supports all payer types that have been configured in your Billing Settings. For example, you may have Private Pay, Medicaid, and other insurances set as your payer types. For more information on how to set Payer Types for your community, read this Billing Settings guide.
Use the Dashboard icon or Billing dropdown menu to access the Collections Center main page. This page houses all outstanding balances for all communities within your company portfolio and offers the ability to bulk record actions and bulk email statements and invoices.
Filters
Because this page defaults to show any outstanding balances for your company, the filters can be incredibly helpful for efficiently drilling down specific data. Once filters are set, be sure to click Refresh to update the data shown in the below table.
You can also export this table to Excel to share with a collections agency if applicable. See the below descriptions of each available filter and its purpose:
Community & Region - If you have multiple communities in ALIS, this main Collections page defaults to show outstanding balances for "All" in which the table shows residents' outstanding balances from all communities. Use this filter to show only the community or communities' data you wish to view.
Resident Stage - Use this filter to view outstanding balances data for the Resident, Applicant, Transferred Out, or Moved Out resident stages.
Resident Search Bar - Type a name in this field. Any current residents, applicants, transferred residents, or moved out residents matching what you type will populate below for your to select.
Product Type - Use this filter to only show outstanding balances based on your company's product types (i.e., IL, AL, MC). This can be particularly helpful if your company uses product types to indicate payer type or Billing program (i.e., "AL - Medicaid").
Payer Type - If you have specific Billing programs enabled in your Billing Settings other than Private Pay (i.e., Medicaid, other insurances, etc.), those will appear in this dropdown menu. Use this filter to view only data based on the payer type(s) indicated on the resident profile.
Has Balance In - Use this filter to narrow the data based on how late the outstanding balances shown are.
Last Action & Last Action Date - Use these filters to show data based on the last collections action taken for applicants/residents. (Remember that Action Types shown here can be configured in Company Settings.)
Bulk Record Actions
To bulk record custom actions from the main Collections page, multiselect the lefthand checkboxes and click the Record Action button. In the pop-up that appears, select an Action, set the record date and time, and write notes to describe the action taken. Click Submit to save this recorded action on each Resident Collections Details page.
Bulk Email Invoices/Statements
From the main Collections page, use the lefthand checkboxes to multiselect those in which you will bulk email invoices or statements to. When bulk emailing, those actions will be recorded for each resident selected and visible on their Resident Collections Details pages.
When you click the Email Invoice button, this takes you to a separate Email Invoices page in which you must review emails saved on payer profiles. If a checkbox is selected on the left, an email is required. You can also add additional emails to 'cc and 'bcc when emailing the invoice.
This page also shows you other details, such as payer type (bolded) and payer preference, which can be edited by clicking on the Resident name link and navigating to the Payers section of their profile. For more information on updating payer details, read this How to Set a Resident Payer guide.
Once all required emails are entered, click the blue Email Invoices button in the top right hand corner.
When you click the Email Statement button, a pop-up appears for you to choose the Statement Type (Payer Open Items, Payer Balance Forward, Account Balance Forward). The Statement Date defaults to today's date but can be edited. Additionally, you are required to choose the From and To dates in which to include balances. Click the Email Statements button to complete this action.
Resident Collections Details
There is a Details button next to each resident's outstanding balance line item in the main Collections table.
Clicking this button takes you to that specific person's Resident Collection Details page. The Resident Collection Details page provides a location for you to review outstanding balances and take collections actions on an individual resident basis.
Resident Details / Payers
The top section of the page gives an overview of Resident Details and configured Payers' basic information. The Payers section shows contact information as well as invoice and payment preferences. To update payer details, you must click on the hyperlinked Resident name. For more information on updating payer details, read this How to Set a Resident Payer guide.
Outstanding Invoices
This section of the page shows all outstanding balances for all payer types related to this resident. The Payer column indicates the payer name and type for each invoice.
Click the hyperlinked Invoice number to view a PDF version of the invoice. You can use the righthand Options button to take other actions related to this specific invoice's charges.
Actions
In the below Actions section of this page, filters can assist you with easily locating the specific actions taken for this resident. Type key words into the Notes field to search, or specify specific action types, date ranges, and/or which staff member completed an action. You can also Export to Excel your filtered actions in the table to send to a collections agency if applicable.
Click the +Add Action button to record an action for this resident. Use the pencil or trashcan icons to either edit the recorded action details or delete the record entirely.
Flag Individual Invoices for Collections
While any unpaid invoice will automatically appear in the Collections Center, you also have the option to "Flag for Collections" individual invoices on a resident's profile. Note that flagging or unflagging an invoice for Collections is a manual workflow not tied to any actions taken elsewhere in ALIS. The purpose of this option is to create a visual alert in the resident profile to prompt Billing teams to take further action in the Collections Center.
To flag an unpaid invoice for Collections, follow the below steps:
- Go to the Billing section of a Resident's profile, and expand the Invoices blue bar.
- On any unpaid invoice you wish to flag, click Options > Flag for Collections. This creates a yellow tag next to the Invoice number. , and remains on the profile regardless of Payment Status or actions taken in the Collections Center.
It may be useful to your team to keep the Collection tag shown on previously unpaid invoices even after the Payment Status has changed to Paid. However, if you wish to remove the tag at any point you can click Options > Unflag for Collections.
Alerts
Setting up alerts for your team can serve as an additional support within your collections process. Some alert events that may be useful are the "Invoice Email Failed" or "Unpaid Invoices." These alerts can be customized in Alerts Settings. For more information on how to set up and manage ALIS Alerts, refer to these Alerts Settings and How to Manage ALIS Alerts guides. If you need assistance with configuring alerts for staff, contact your Account Manager or our ALIS Customer Success Team.
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