? security level for edit payment plan charge

[DavidWolf]

I just noticed that if you edit a payment plan charge it does not show up on the audit trail and does not show up in any adjustment reports. Plus there is no security setting to limit its use. Did you know that you could enter a negative edit to a payment plan charge and reduce a patients amount due?????
Seems possible for a patient to pay cash for their payment plan and your employee could enter it as a negative amount edit to a payment plan and pockets the money.

Am I missing something here or is this a serious embezzlement opportunity that would be difficult to track???


THANKS,
DW

[mowgli]

If a pay plan charge is edited or deleted, the total amount (principal) gets changed, leaving an obvious mismatch between it and the original payment plan adjustment in the main account screen. But there doesn't seem to be any alert about it. Since the original adjustment is covered by the audit trail and security, there ought to be some means within the program to enforce a match between those two amounts.

[DavidWolf]

I agree that you can see that it happened if you are in the person's account. But am I correct in the assessment that if you don't know to go to the patient account it would not show on a report and if it happens you can not audit who entered the adjustment???

THANKS.

[nathansparks]

I do not see the issue really. It does appear to be a weakness in the audit trail, but I do not quite see a viable embezzlement plan. The patient balance would be incorrect, wouldn't it? Editing a scheduled payment amount is just editing the amount of the loan. Does not provide an embezzelment opportunity. That would be just like not entering a regular cash payment, the balance would be wrong and it would not show up on a report.
An additional point though, it would show on the payment plan report if you compared the same payment plans month to month.
I admit I may not understand what the employee would do in your example. If you give me a specific scenario step by step I may be able to evaluate it.

[DavidWolf]

OK here are the steps:

A patient has a payment plan amount due.
The patient comes to my office and pays cash.
The employee uses the function to [+Add] to the amortization schedule.
They enter a negative amount in the patient's amortization schedule that equals the amount of the cash which they pocketed.
The amount is no longer due on the payment plan and the account balance stays the same!!!!
Open dental automatically changes the Total Amount in the Agreement to match the amount on the amortization schedule, which would show up as a changed amount on the payment plan report. But it would not be obvious unless you are printing out the reports every month and keeping a copy and manually comparing them.
The paypln adjustment amount no longer matches the principal amount and the account balance stays the same.
Minimally this is an accounting BUG in the way Open Dental calculates the balance.
I think that it is necessary to be able to adjust the amortization schedule, but it should show up as an adjustment just like the adjustments to the account.
There should also be a security limit to be able to make these changes.

[B.Thomas]

Wow! You are correct. That is an easy way to make balances look paid when they are not. I need to cross reference the payment plan report ASAP.