View Adjustment Entry screen. View Video, 2 min. 29 sec.

Adjustment Message
The Adjustment Message combo box contains all the available adjustment messages.  The program comes with two messages already entered, "Charge Adjustment" and "Payment Adjustment."  You may add additional adjustment messages via the System Files choice on the Utility Menu. When you create your own messages they will be designated as "Charge" messages or "Payment" messages.  The message will therefore determine whether an adjustment is a "Charge Adjustment" or a "Payment Adjustment."  Charge adjustments will have a "(C)" after the message and payment adjustments will have a "(P)" after the message. For example, if you have a message labeled "Returned Check", that should be designated as a payment adjustment.  An adjustment entitled "Discount" should be designated as a charge adjustment.  Adjustments should be used exclusively for charges or payments.

The message you select has nothing to do with the account balance you are adjusting.  The effect on the balance is only dependent on the amount of the adjustment and whether that amount was positive or negative.  The designation of "Charge" or "Payment" affects the calculation of office and doctor totals.  The program can easily come up with raw totals, but needs to know if an adjustment was intended to modify a charge or a payment to calculate "Adjusted Charge" and "Adjusted Payment" totals.

Adjustment Amount
The adjustment Amount may be positive or negative.  If you are entering a negative adjustment to decrease the patient Balance, place a minus sign (dash) in front of the amount.  For example:

-45

If you are entering a positive adjustment to increase the patient Balance, enter only the amount.  The plus sign "+" is assumed.  For private accounts and insurance accounts with the Track Patient Portion option of NO, the Total Balance and Due Now amount are both affected by the adjustment.  For accounts with the Track Patient Portion option YES, only the Total Balance is affected.  An exception to this would be if you entered an adjustment that brought the Total Balance below the Due Now amount.  In that case the Due Now amount would decrease to match the Total Balance.  Changing the Due Now amount for an account with the Track Patient Portion Option YES is accomplished with a Due Now Adjustment.