CareCredit

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Nate
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CareCredit

Post by Nate » Wed Sep 09, 2009 1:18 am

Just signed up with CareCredit and we are not completely sure how we should enter payments. We did set up a payment type called 'CareCredit' so that we can assign the payment properly and keep track of it. However we just ran a payment through for a patient and it was for $250. Then I noticed the amount credited to the business account was $237.50 because a 5% fee was charged by CareCredit. How should I handle the $12.50 carecredit fee?
1) Do I enter it as a discount to patients treatment, then re-enter the correct CareCredit payment as $237.50
2) Do I leave the $250 payment from CareCredit even though they did not really pay that amount, then keep track of the $12.50 as a credit card processing fee like we would when we run a regular credit card? I hope CareCredit sends a monthly statment.
3) Any other ideas?

Thanks

Nate
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Re: CareCredit

Post by Nate » Wed Sep 09, 2009 6:54 pm

Any help would be appreciated. I have already called OD technical support and the gal I spoke with could not help. She thought CareCredit was an insurance with a specific fee schedule. Anyway just curious how others enter the payments when there is a fee paid to CareCredit.

Thanks

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jordansparks
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Re: CareCredit

Post by jordansparks » Thu Sep 10, 2009 2:22 am

It might depend on whether you get a monthly statement from CareCredit. Probably makes sense to just enter the $250 and then worry about the fee as a separate expense in your accounting system. I don't know that the fee necessarily belongs on the patient's account screen.
Jordan Sparks, DMD
http://www.opendental.com

Nate
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Re: CareCredit

Post by Nate » Thu Sep 10, 2009 3:54 am

Thanks, I appreciate the information.

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drtech
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Re: CareCredit

Post by drtech » Thu Sep 10, 2009 6:21 pm

WE have been doing CareCredit for some time now, this is the best way we have found to account for it:

-Create a Patient called Care Credit for the accounting of it

-Create three adjustment types and one payment type
Adj1="Care Credit Adj - Pt Account" (+)
Adj2="Care Credit Adj - CC Account" (-)
Adj3="Care Credit Fee" (-)
Pmt1= "Care Credit Payment"

Whenever a transaction is made for the patient:
1)Enter an adjustment for the full fee using adj1 above in the patient's account
---Do this next step also every time to make your reconciling sooo much easier!!
---in the note of the adjustment, enter m five things, 1) The patient name(or account holder name if different...very important!), 2) Care Credit account# (copy from the financial notes where we store this number), 3) amt charged, 4) Terms of transaction (eg 12moths, 6 months, 5 year plan) 5) initials and date of staff member doing the transaction
---Copy this note to paste into the matching reverse transaction below (IMPORTANT!)
2)Enter a matching adj for the full fee using adj2 above in the Care Credit account
---Paste the note first that you copied from the other account into the note 1st!
---This way, you will have all the necessary info to make sure you enter the correct amt and when you reconcile, you can tell what patient goes with what amt. Trust me, this is important!
---these will equal $0 in total adjustments entered since you have not yet received any payment but will add a balance to what Care Credit owes you and take your patient's balance to $0.

When you account for Care Credit transactions once per month:
1)Go to the Care credit website and print out your transaction and payment history
2) One by one, reconcile the transactions and make sure you have everything entered correctly.
3) Enter each fee that care credit charged you for each matching transaction by using the Adj3 listed above
4) Enter the payment for the amt of $ Care Credit actually pays you by using the Pmt1 type listed above
--this way everything should be accounted for and you can track how much you are paying Care Credit by just running a report for "Care Credit Fee" (adj3 above) whenever you like

I hope this helps
David Fuchs
Dentist - Springfield, MO
Smile Dental http://www.887-smile.com

ForrestGumpDDS
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Re: CareCredit

Post by ForrestGumpDDS » Mon Aug 20, 2012 11:06 pm

I'm wondering if there have been any changes or improvements since 2009.
And also:
Adjustment for CC pt that is named "Care Credit amount" - do I post it to Care Credit patient? What sign do I add? Seems to be the sign should be same as actual CC charge and opposite to Full fee. Which is conflicting with your post, DrTech.
I must be missing something... (((

JimZ
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Re: CareCredit

Post by JimZ » Tue Aug 21, 2012 7:12 am

We've only been doing this for a short while, but our method is not as involved.
Under payments we created a CareCredit payment type and under Adjustments we created a CareCredit Adj (which will be the fee taken by CareCredit).
When the deposit gets made into the office checking account, we make and entry on the patient's account of the payment deposited and the adjustment. This shows on the patient's account as CareCredit payment and CareCredit Adj.
I believe a report can be achieved for the amounts of payments and adjustments for CareCredit just like an Insurance payment or adjustment report.
Obviously, if we are doing this wrong, I will need to correct the procedures in place immediately.

Jim

enamelrod
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Re: CareCredit

Post by enamelrod » Tue Aug 21, 2012 6:21 pm

please explain to me the purpose of this exercise?

do you do this for all of your credit card payments also?

why not calculate all the charges in your Quickbooks files?

ForrestGumpDDS
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Re: CareCredit

Post by ForrestGumpDDS » Tue Aug 21, 2012 7:27 pm

enamelrod wrote:please explain to me the purpose of this exercise?

do you do this for all of your credit card payments also?

why not calculate all the charges in your Quickbooks files?
Let me try to explain this. Care credit transactions are different in the nature because they are a third party payment which are not attached to claims. Well, I might be wrong, but this is how I see the main difference. Because of this difference and the fee that Care Credit charges the office you cannot balance pt's account traditional way and keep track of what patient owes, what you pay to Care Credit and what Care Credit pays to you on behalf of the patient.
If you post to patient account a charge for procedure and then enter a payment for amount that Care credit paid it will look like it were patient's money and there will be no way to track it, bring it in reports the way you want it to show.
QuickBooks - they are not even involved at this stage. But later, if you are using QB, you will use it for a purpose of tracking those debits and credits so you have to have billing in OD set up very clean and understandable way.
For credit cards you don't need it. It's just like any other type of payment that patient gives to you. Then the bank sends you a bill for your merchant account which you put in your QB the way you prefer. Care Credit charges must be recorded through OD or else your patient's accounts involved will be short of some money in there and you may accidentally send them a bill or something like that.
I hope it makes sense...

ForrestGumpDDS
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Re: CareCredit

Post by ForrestGumpDDS » Tue Aug 21, 2012 7:33 pm

JimZ wrote:We've only been doing this for a short while, but our method is not as involved.
Under payments we created a CareCredit payment type and under Adjustments we created a CareCredit Adj (which will be the fee taken by CareCredit).
When the deposit gets made into the office checking account, we make and entry on the patient's account of the payment deposited and the adjustment. This shows on the patient's account as CareCredit payment and CareCredit Adj.
I believe a report can be achieved for the amounts of payments and adjustments for CareCredit just like an Insurance payment or adjustment report.
Obviously, if we are doing this wrong, I will need to correct the procedures in place immediately.

Jim
I think I like that way a lot better, then drtech's. I am a very new user of OD and didn't play with settings for long enough to figure out adding an extra type of payment for Care Credit. I think your way has 2 huge advantages: it is simple (takes less time and thus costs less and allows less opportunities to screw things up which I don't even need any help with from outside :lol: ) and it does allow for all reports that I can think of I might need.
Greatly appreciate your post, JimZ.

Pruce Dental
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Re: CareCredit

Post by Pruce Dental » Wed Aug 22, 2012 9:37 am

I don't understand...why are you posting Care Credit adjustments within OD?...Do you do that for each Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express payment..CareCredit is a credit card afterall? Why not keep that separate in quickbooks?...Do you really want patient's to see how much Care Credit bank fees you are paying on their OD account statements?
Robert L. Pruce, DMD
www.prucedental.com

JimZ
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Re: CareCredit

Post by JimZ » Wed Aug 22, 2012 9:32 pm

I don't have a problem posting the CareCredit adjustments in the patient's account. It's a nice reminder that the 0% interest in not really 0%.
CareCredit doesn't send us $500 and we pay them $50; they send $450. Credit card payments are paid in full to us, therefore the full amount is shown in the patient account within OD. Income is based on money received and this seems to be a cleaner way of showing it.

Jim

enamelrod
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Re: CareCredit

Post by enamelrod » Thu Aug 23, 2012 1:15 am

so how do you account for your cc processing fee? your saying that visa gives you the full pt amount? or do you just ignore your monthly transaction fees?

JimZ
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Re: CareCredit

Post by JimZ » Thu Aug 23, 2012 5:20 am

The credit card processing fee is a business expense that has no more of a bearing on the patient's account than part of the rent, electric, lab fee, etc. I'm confused because we are a full fee office and don't participate with Insurance companies. What do offices do that participate in these programs? You bill the insurance the full amount, they pay less than that amount, and you write off (adj) the balance. The patient's account shows amount sent to Ins, Ins payment received, and an adjustment. We've just adopted that formula for CareCredit: send , receive and adjust. As far as I know, you don't claim the Insurance adjustments as a business expense on tax returns, but the monthly cc fees are.

Jim

Pruce Dental
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Re: CareCredit

Post by Pruce Dental » Thu Aug 23, 2012 8:53 am

Hey Jim..

Just realized that your in my neighborhood!!!..I am in McMurray...small world....
Robert L. Pruce, DMD
www.prucedental.com

enamelrod
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Re: CareCredit

Post by enamelrod » Thu Aug 23, 2012 12:53 pm

so why not do the same with care credit... the difference is care credit breaks them out patient to patient and the credit cards lumps it all together but you could take your credit card monthly statement and pull each one out and put the adjustments back into the patients accounts. A patient who pays you with a visa card and one that pays you with a visa rewards card for the same procedure you will not get the same amount in payment. i guess what i will be asking my accountant is do i track the care credit fees as expenses or bank fees...

babysilvertooth
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Re: CareCredit

Post by babysilvertooth » Wed Sep 26, 2012 7:24 am

I agree with those who say that Care Credit is treated like any other credit card. You should be tracking it in your accounting software, not in your patients record. It is the same as 'agreeing' to the fees that your Merchant services processors takes for processing any other Credit Card.

YOu can easily run reports for payments made by Care Credit in OD vs. the 'despost' from Care Credit in your accounting software ( or end of year CCredit statement). and you will know your yearly discount. Taking CareCredit is a business expense like any other credit card fees.
I just take my CareCredit statement at the end of the years and compare to the 'payments'by CC and see what my discounts are. Much easier to do.

JimZ
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Re: CareCredit

Post by JimZ » Wed Sep 26, 2012 1:58 pm

babysilvertooth wrote:I agree with those who say that Care Credit is treated like any other credit card. You should be tracking it in your accounting software, not in your patients record. It is the same as 'agreeing' to the fees that your Merchant services processors takes for processing any other Credit Card.

YOu can easily run reports for payments made by Care Credit in OD vs. the 'despost' from Care Credit in your accounting software ( or end of year CCredit statement). and you will know your yearly discount. Taking CareCredit is a business expense like any other credit card fees.
I just take my CareCredit statement at the end of the years and compare to the 'payments'by CC and see what my discounts are. Much easier to do.
I must be having a blonde moment with this.
Why do you need to track the CareCredit fees in the accounting software? These fees aren't deductible unless you are claiming the full amount charged to CareCredit as Income. In my above example, we charge $500 to CareCredit, they deposit into our checking account $450, which we post in the patient's account in OD. A balance of $50 is left which we adj as the CareCredit fee. I can only claim the $450 as income not the $500.
On a credit card, we charge $500 and enter a payment of $500 into the patient's account in OD, the next day, the full $500 is deposited into the checking account. I have to claim this entire $500 as income. At the end of the month, I make an entry into the accounting software of a Bank Fee which is a business expense to offset the full amount received.
I don't see a need to track the CareCredit fee in the accounting software.

Jim

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B.Thomas
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Re: CareCredit

Post by B.Thomas » Wed Sep 26, 2012 11:24 pm

I agree it is not necessary to track Care credit separately if you do your accounting on a cash basis system. We treat Care credit as a discount and just have one negative adjustment for it.

The only reason I would think it would be important to track Care Credit in QuickBooks is if we can use it as a deduction on our taxes. But what kind of expense would that fall under?

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drtech
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Re: CareCredit

Post by drtech » Thu Sep 27, 2012 5:04 pm

The main reason to track your Care Credit it so make sure it actually went through. We have had a few instances when the transaction did no go through...even though we have a receipt...we didn't get paid. If we didn't go back and check each one we would have missed out on being paid. Quite a bit of work though, so have to weigh if it is worth it.
David Fuchs
Dentist - Springfield, MO
Smile Dental http://www.887-smile.com

efeuer
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Re: CareCredit

Post by efeuer » Wed Sep 24, 2014 10:52 am

JimZ wrote:We've only been doing this for a short while, but our method is not as involved.
Under payments we created a CareCredit payment type and under Adjustments we created a CareCredit Adj (which will be the fee taken by CareCredit).
When the deposit gets made into the office checking account, we make and entry on the patient's account of the payment deposited and the adjustment. This shows on the patient's account as CareCredit payment and CareCredit Adj.
I believe a report can be achieved for the amounts of payments and adjustments for CareCredit just like an Insurance payment or adjustment report.
Obviously, if we are doing this wrong, I will need to correct the procedures in place immediately.

Jim
Sorry to rehash an old topic, but if a patient makes a payment using Care Credit, and you wait to note this in OD until the payment has posted in your bank account, how do you keep an accurate representation in the mean time of the patients balance after the patient's Care Credit account has been charged and before the payment posts.

JimZ
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Re: CareCredit

Post by JimZ » Fri Sep 26, 2014 4:55 am

The patient's balance would be reflected the same way as an insurance patient. When we send in insurance claims, the patient balance is showing for the full amount due. Once the insurance check arrives, their balance is reduced by the insurance payment and then they receive a statement for any balance left.

Or are you asking how do we make a note that reflects the charges have been sent to CareCredit for processing, similar to the "Sent Verified" of the insurance patients once their claim has been printed or sent electronically? We usually make a common log entry after sending to CareCredit as a reminder to us.

Of course the fact that we only have 1-2 CareCredits a month probably helps with the simplicity of our system


Jim

efeuer
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Re: CareCredit

Post by efeuer » Mon Sep 29, 2014 1:44 pm

JimZ wrote:The patient's balance would be reflected the same way as an insurance patient. When we send in insurance claims, the patient balance is showing for the full amount due. Once the insurance check arrives, their balance is reduced by the insurance payment and then they receive a statement for any balance left.

Or are you asking how do we make a note that reflects the charges have been sent to CareCredit for processing, similar to the "Sent Verified" of the insurance patients once their claim has been printed or sent electronically? We usually make a common log entry after sending to CareCredit as a reminder to us.

Of course the fact that we only have 1-2 CareCredits a month probably helps with the simplicity of our system


Jim
My question was related to how you reflect that charges have been sent to CareCredit (similar to Sent Verified).
We were originally noting that the payment had been charged in the CommLog, but ran into a few problems with the front office sending out bills / accidentally double charging the patient.

Now we are entering the payment as well as the adjustment into OpenDental at the time that the payment is charged; and then waiting until the money has been deposited before attaching the charge to a deposit. Obviously, there are problems with this method, but it prevents the issues I mentioned above, and it seems manageable with only a few CareCredit charges a month.

KevinRossen
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Re: CareCredit

Post by KevinRossen » Tue Sep 30, 2014 9:20 am

I agree with this:
jordansparks wrote:It might depend on whether you get a monthly statement from CareCredit. Probably makes sense to just enter the $250 and then worry about the fee as a separate expense in your accounting system. I don't know that the fee necessarily belongs on the patient's account screen.
Open Dental has an accounting feature built in now. We're not using it yet, so I can't speak as to how to set this up.
Kevin Rossen
Office Manager, Rossen Dental
Founder, DivergentDental.com
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JimZ
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Re: CareCredit

Post by JimZ » Tue Sep 30, 2014 1:23 pm

KevinRossen wrote:I agree with this:
jordansparks wrote:It might depend on whether you get a monthly statement from CareCredit. Probably makes sense to just enter the $250 and then worry about the fee as a separate expense in your accounting system. I don't know that the fee necessarily belongs on the patient's account screen.
Open Dental has an accounting feature built in now. We're not using it yet, so I can't speak as to how to set this up.
Unfortunately, by doing it this way in OpenDental, your income will be off (you did not receive the $250) and the patient's account will not be accurate (it will now show the full $250 as having been paid), and now the all the Income reports will be inaccurate also (if you have multiple providers this could be a nightmare). Which is why we have a tickler file to check in 2 days after a pt uses CareCredit to be able to accurately post the payment and adjustment fees.

Jim

KevinRossen
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Re: CareCredit

Post by KevinRossen » Tue Sep 30, 2014 9:40 pm

JimZ wrote: Unfortunately, by doing it this way in OpenDental, your income will be off (you did not receive the $250) and the patient's account will not be accurate (it will now show the full $250 as having been paid), and now the all the Income reports will be inaccurate also (if you have multiple providers this could be a nightmare). Which is why we have a tickler file to check in 2 days after a pt uses CareCredit to be able to accurately post the payment and adjustment fees.
Jim
Per CareCredit, you are not allowed to pass on fees to the patient:
"As an important reminder about the CareCredit credit card, you cannot pass on the merchant and/or any other CareCredit fees to your patients/clients. Refer to the CareCredit Card Acceptance Agreement for Participating Professionals."

What Jordan has said is these merchant fees are better tracked in accounting software, not a patient's account in Open Dental. You can track it on a patient's account if you'd like, but do you track bank fees for checks or merchant fees for Visa/MC/AMEX?
Kevin Rossen
Office Manager, Rossen Dental
Founder, DivergentDental.com
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JimZ
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Re: CareCredit

Post by JimZ » Wed Oct 01, 2014 4:24 am

We are not passing the fees on to the patient. CareCredit doesn't want you to charge $275 for a $250 procedure. That is passing the fees to the patient. My adjustments are just a reflection of the transaction that has occurred.

The reason you don't track merchant fees in OD is you get paid the full amount. In my accounting software, I have a category for bank fees, which is reconciled once a month. However in OD, with CareCredit, we don't collect $250 as we would if this was a MC or Visa; instead we get $225 ($250 minus the CareCredit fee). If that was a Visa transaction, I would have $250 deposited into my account the next business day not $250 minus my merchant fee. I feel that we need to display and keep track of CareCredit this way to insure our Income reports are accurate.

The real question is: Are CareCredit fees merchant fees? Our office says no. Others may disagree.


Jim

KevinRossen
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Re: CareCredit

Post by KevinRossen » Wed Oct 01, 2014 6:50 am

JimZ wrote:We are not passing the fees on to the patient. CareCredit doesn't want you to charge $275 for a $250 procedure. That is passing the fees to the patient. My adjustments are just a reflection of the transaction that has occurred.

The reason you don't track merchant fees in OD is you get paid the full amount. In my accounting software, I have a category for bank fees, which is reconciled once a month. However in OD, with CareCredit, we don't collect $250 as we would if this was a MC or Visa; instead we get $225 ($250 minus the CareCredit fee). If that was a Visa transaction, I would have $250 deposited into my account the next business day not $250 minus my merchant fee. I feel that we need to display and keep track of CareCredit this way to insure our Income reports are accurate.

The real question is: Are CareCredit fees merchant fees? Our office says no. Others may disagree.


Jim
That all makes sense when you line it up that way. Does your office communicate the "fee" with your patients? I'm thinking the long-term patients would shy away from using it if they knew what they charged.
Kevin Rossen
Office Manager, Rossen Dental
Founder, DivergentDental.com
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JimZ
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Re: CareCredit

Post by JimZ » Wed Oct 01, 2014 4:56 pm

That all makes sense when you line it up that way. Does your office communicate the "fee" with your patients? I'm thinking the long-term patients would shy away from using it if they knew what they charged.

You are correct, the long-term patients do shy away from this. It is mainly the newer patients who do end up using it. I don't "volunteer" the fee info with the patients unless they begin to comment that "this 0% financing is great", then we explain how they are able to achieve the 0%.

Thanks for your understanding, I was beginning to think I was missing something! :D

Jim

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