Tip #119 - Utilizing the “Bills Finalized” and “Don’t Pay at Settlement”Options for Medical Providers

Two options available in the Medical Provider section are “Bills Finalized” and “Don’t Pay at Settlement”.
 
“Bills Finalized” and “Don’t Pay at Settlement” checkboxes:

“Bills Finalized” and “Don’t Pay at Settlement” columns as shown on the Medical Provider Screen:

Bill Finalized
Flagging a bill as “Finalized” is a good way of indicating that you have verified the bill and there are no outstanding invoices for the subject medical provider prior to disbursing funds at settlement. It is a common mistake to disburse funds at settlement only to receive subsequent bills from a medical provider. Best practice is to contact and verify bills with the medical provider prior to making any disbursements whatsoever.
 
Bill flagged as finalized, an appropriate note entered, and a copy of the final bill attached to the medical provider entry:

Don’t Pay at Settlement
After a matter has been settled and the settlement check(s) received, you can have SmartAdvocate populate the distribution checks on the Settlement Screen. The system will list the distribution checks for liens, attorney’s fees,  disbursements (case costs), outstanding medical bills, and net to client.

Occassionally, you may not want to pay specific outstanding medical bills when the funds are disbursed (the bill may be disputed, for example) or you may not want specific medical bills populated on the distribution list. In order to prevent a specific medical provider’s total bill from populating on the check distribution list, you can flag that total “Don’t Pay at Settlement” for the specific medical provider.

If flagged as indicated above, the medical bill for the subject provider will not be listed on the check distribution list.
Note that in addition to preventing the bill from populating in the automatic distribution check list, the flag also prevents the bill amount from being included in the automatically calculated “Medical Bills” field when entering the settlement.

A final point to consider - you may want to use the flag if you have used the “Copy Total Bill to Liens” or “Copy All Bills to Liens” feature to transfer the bills to the Lien Tracking page. Otherwise, the bill amount will be counted twice in the settlement calculation and distribution – once as a Lien and once as a Medical Bill.