Posting writeoffs when have secondary insurance

[Pruce Dental]

I was wondering how others are posting their writeoffs when there is secondary insurance. I have subscribed to the "Insurance Solutions Newsletter" in the past. They gave a simple formula for calculating writeoffs but recommended that you wait until both EOB's are received before trying to figure out the writeoff so an office wasn't writing off too much.

So my question is addressed to those that know the formula in that newsletter.

I have to assume that you would just post the complete writeoff on the secondary plan in OD and not try to post any writeoff on the primary plan right? and there would be no reason to post it "by procedure" because the writeoff would be based on both plans UCR right?

Should I be using the writeoff button to the right of the deductible button on the "edit claim" sub-screen labeled "enter payment" to post the complete writeoff?

also when I post a writeoff like mentioned above will it affect any tables in OD used to calculate other patients with the same identical secondary insurance plan? If so, do I need to manually go back and rechange the values back to their original value?

[hjoesaar]

This has been an issue in our office too. We submit to the primary insurance and when we receive the payment, post it. Do not write off anything at this point. Submit to #2 insurance. Then, when both have paid, subtract total received (per procedure) from lowest contracted fee. (=patient's portion) Then subtract patien't portion from UCR fee = write off. Do not use the OD writeoffs - they must be calculated manually. If you don't, you might end up with patient creidits (ask me how I know) However, there are some tricky caveats - If the first pays 100% such as preventative, you cannot send a claim for more. I found an Excel spreadsheet on this and shortcut it on the frontdesk's desktop. Actually, we don't have Excel on the computer so I shortcut to Google's speadsheet. I can find it for you if you like.