Best Practice 

How to collect a payment from the HotDoc Dashboard. 

After the patient attends their appointment (at your clinic, or virtually via Telehealth), you will need to collect the payment via the HotDoc Dashboard. We will sync the patient's invoice amount from Best Practice and show the actual outstanding cost in your Dashboard for you to collect from the patient. Please follow these steps below to see how to do this. 

1. Firstly, the patient will receive a request for card details for their upcoming appointment and will be shown an estimated cost. The patient will then provide a payment method and their card details will be stored. (To see more on the patient journey, please see Payments - The Patient Journey
   
   Please note: The patient will not be charged until after the consult. 
   
   
2. In your HotDoc Dashboard, go to Payments > Booking Activity and next to the patients upcoming appointment you will see the Payment Status column will say Card Details Stored. 
   
   
   
   - We will also write this back to the patients appointment in Best Practice:
   
   
   
3. After the patient attends their appointment, in Best Practice the practitioner will need to finalise the visit, enter the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) item numbers for the appointment and click Save. 
   
   
   
   
4. Once the appointment is in Billing Status (the appointment will be green in the appointment book), click Create Account > in 'Bill to select Patient > click Store. This will enable HotDoc to sync the invoice into the Dashboard.
   
   -If the Bill to field is Medicare, HotDoc will not sync the invoice amount and you can click 'Cancel' in the Dashboard to cancel the payment.
   
   
   

   The value entered into Best Practice is the total charge that the patient will pay, as HotDoc deducts the Processing Fee from this invoice.

5. Go to the Dashboard > Payments > Booking Activity and you will see the outstanding payment in the Act $ column once we have synced the invoice. When you're ready to charge the patient, click Collect. 
   
   - You will also see the patients invoice/receipt number and who it is billed to (patient or Medicare), as well as the Invoice Status (outstanding/paid)
   
   
   
   - Please note: It can take up to 5 minutes to sync this invoice, we suggest refreshing your Dashboard if it does not appear. If after 5 minutes the Act $ column says - please see Why did HotDoc not sync the Invoice?
   
   
6. If required, amend the amount to collect from the patient in the Amount to collect field and/or select Collect Amount to charge the patient:
   
   
   
   
7. Once the patients card has successfully been charged, you will see the Payment Status column change to Paid or update accordingly depending on the outcome.
   
   
   
   
8. To conclude the payment, go to Billing History within Best Practice. Double-click on the patient's account to view the Payment details screen. 
   • Tick the 'Pay full amount' box
   • Enter the amount in the 'Direct credit' field
   • If you are submitting a claim to Medicare, tick 'Send via Patient Claiming'
   • Click 'Process' to finalise the payment
     
     
     Please note:  After following these steps, there will be an amount equal to the processing fee outstanding on the patient's account.  This amount can then be written off as a 'Processing fee'. 
     
     

What to do if the patient is eligible for bulk billing

If the patient booked a privately billed appointment type online but has since seen the practitioner and been cleared for bulk billing, you can cancel the fund collection by following the steps below:

1. In your HotDoc Dashboard, head to Payments > Booking Activity then locate the patients appointment. 
   
   
   
   
2. Select Cancel next to the patients appointment:
   
   
   
   
3. Confirm this by selecting Yes, Cancel:
   
   
   
   
4. We will then cancel the request and the patient will not be charged. The 'Payment Status' column will update to Cancelled. You can then move forward with any bulk billing processes your practice has.