eServices Text-To-Pay Integrations for Patient Bills

eServices provides the ability for patient bills to be sent electronically to a patient either via text and/or e-mail. AIM will transmit the bill to eServices electronically at the time the patient bill is printed. If the patient opts-out of eServices communications, or a number of days pass without payment, a physical bill will be sent to a user's task scheduler grid for printing. 

Patients receive a notification via either text or e-mail providing them a link to make a payment online. This text or e-mail essentially replaces the patient bill and if a payment is made via the online portal, the payment will be sent to the Process Reconciliation screen's Payment Service Mailbox. If a patient balance remains after the payment(s), the bill will still enter the statement process.

This process requires collection of the patient's mobile phone number and/or e-mail address as well as some prerequisite setup to begin use. These requirements and a more detailed review of this process are detailed below. 

Setup Requirements

To begin utilizing text-to-pay functions, please configure the workflow settings in Patient Invoice/Blank Setup. There are some important fields that are required for completion:

• Delivery Method: This dropdown must be set to "Text/Email then Print" to enable transmission of patient bills to eServices.
• Days Before Printing: Set this field to the number of days before you would like to drop a bill to the paper printing process.

• Assigned User: Choose a user to be assigned bills that drop from the eServices text-to-pay process to the standard patient billing process. A user selected in this dropdown must have the Print and Task Scheduler Grid role setup permissions enabled, otherwise they will not be shown as a valid user for selection. 
  
  • Secondary Assigned User: A Secondary Assigned User can also be selected to serve as a backup when the primary Assigned User is not available.
• Send Confirmation Success E-mail: If enabled, all Assigned Users will receive e-mail notifications to the e-mail in their User Maintenance Setup record whenever a patient drops from the eServices text-to-pay process to the standard patient billing process. This is recommended to enable as it contains the bill number(s) and will help account for bills that are dropped from the eServices text-to-pay process.

Collecting Patient Phone Numbers / Emails

Once the text-to-pay feature is enabled, a Text-To-Pay Info button will appear in the Billing Module's Information Tab and the Accounts Module's Members Tab.

In these screens, the patient's Mobile Phone Number, their Email Address, and the patient's Opt-Out Status are present. Here you can enter this information with the exception of the patient's Opt-Out Status, which can only be entered from the patient's account, or will be updated automatically if a patient chooses to opt-out of eServices communications or an invalid phone number is provided. Patients that have opted-out of eServices communications will skip the eServices text-to-pay process and proceed directly to the standard patient billing process. Billers can manually change the Out-Out Status field in the Account for a patient if needed, but this change will only affect new bills moving forward.

Billers can manually enter a mobile phone number/email for a patient either in their Account or on one of the patient's bills to initiate the eServices text-to-pay process for that bill. If the crew collect this information on the ePCR, the system will either import or post (if using AIM ePCR) this information to the bill's Text-To-Pay Info button's Electronic Communication Contact Details screen. The biller will always have control over what phone number or e-mail to utilize for text-to-pay services, as the system will prompt when the bill is saved if those contact details are different than the data currently being used. Here is the hierarchy for use of the Mobile Phone Number and E-mail fields:

1. When no Mobile Phone Number has been captured, the system will attempt to utilize the Home Phone Number. AIM will do the same for e-mails too.
2. When a Phone Number and/or Email are recorded on a PCR, that phone number or email will post to the Text-To-Pay button's Electronic Communication Contact Details screen when the bill is imported or posted from AIM ePCR.
   
   • If the data posting to the Mobile Phone Number or Email fields does not match the existing Home Phone Number or Email fields, the new data will be used instead.
   • New data from the PCR will only be used when the Phone Number Type is equal to "Mobile" and/or the Email Type is equal to "Personal" on the PCR. If multiple are recorded on a PCR, only the first record will be utilized. Please ensure providers are aware of the need to appropriately label the phone number/email addresses when considering this integration.
3. Billers can overwrite the Mobile Phone Number and E-mail if updated information is discovered during the data entry process - as long as that data is added to the bill before it is printed, eServices will use that data instead.
   1. Updating the information in the Bill will update the information in the Account. However, Electronic Communication Contact Details (including the patient's Opt-Out Status), will only affect new bills moving forward when updating in the account. Therefore it is recommended, that if new contact details are discovered, to update the latest non-printed bill with that information, which will also update the account and all new bills for that patient from that point on.

Updated Printing Bills Workflow

The text-to-pay workflow will transmit patient bills electronically to eServices at the time they are printed in AIM, whether that is via the Task Scheduler, or through manual printing.

A patient bill will be sent to eServices when ALL of the following conditions are met:

• AIM Support has been engaged to help with the necessary behind-the-scenes configuration.
• eService Payment Processing integration is active.
• Patient Invoice/Blank Setup > Delivery Method Selection dropdown is equal to "Text/Email then Print"
• Patient has mobile phone and/or e-mail information in their Account's Electronic Communication Contact Details screen
• Patient's Opt-Out Status is not equal to "Yes"

The system will provide the biller with a notification during the transaction posting prompt (shown above), detailing the number of bills that will be physically printed versus those that will be sent electronically to eServices. Since bills transmitted to eServices do not require an initial physical printout, they will be excluded from the batch of printed bills.

Bills sent to eServices will be updated to a Printed status, even though they are transmitted electronically. This status allows payments to be processed immediately through the payment service once the file is received from eServices.

Dropping Back to the Standard Printing Process

As noted previously, there are a few ways that bills can exit the eServices text-to-pay process and return to the standard patient billing process. 

• Manual update: In the patient account's Account Members tab, billers can manually opt a patient out by updating the Opt-Out Status field to "Yes". This can be done if the patient contacts the biller directly and requests to not receive any future communications from eServices.
• Responding to eServices: When eServices engages the patient, they will receive the opportunity to opt-out directly through eServices, who will in turn update AIM. This will automatically update the Opt-Out status without the need for manual intervention by the biller.
• Invalid information: Once a bill is sent to eServices, they will verify the information provided is correct. If an invalid phone number or e-mail is supplied, that number or email will be rejected automatically by eServices, which will cause the bill to return to the standard printing process.

When a bill drops from the eServices text-to-pay process and returns to the standard patient billing process, the following will occur:

1. System automatically posts a "Reprinted Bill" transaction on the bill (this provides an audit trail on when the bill dropped to the standard process).
2. The reprinted bill is sent to the Task Scheduler Grid of the Assigned/Secondary Assigned User.
   1. E-mail notifications are sent to the user(s) if configured when this occurs. 

After Text-to-Pay Service

Here are a few example scenarios of what comes after a bill is transmitted:

1. Patient makes a payment using the online portal: in this case, the payment will be sent to AIM for processing. See the final section in this document for more details.
   1. The patient can continue making payments using eServices throughout the entirety of the aging process. Eventually, a statement will be generated for the patient, which will reflect any payments they made during the process.
2. Patient does not make a payment: if a payment is not made after eServices texts/emails the patient, then the system will automatically drop the bill to the standard printing process after X days, where X is equal to the value entered in the Number of Days field in Patient Invoice/Blank Setup.

Processing eServices Payments

Payments made via the eServices text-to-pay feature are sent directly to the Payment Service mailbox in the Process Reconciliation screen. Click here for more information on processing these payments.