Contract Basics

Contract Requirements

In order to create and activate a contract for a patient you must have:

At least one treatment phase created in the Clinical side of the patient's chart
At least one treatment plan associated with the treatment phase
No other active contracts

Tops Ortho allows two account holders per patient; therefore you can have up to two active contracts, one for each account holder. Account holder A’s contract may be a total of $2,500 while Account holder B’s contract may be $2,000, for a patient total of $4,500.

Contract Behavior

Tops Ortho will store a contract in the Patient Information window indefinitely.
A contract is activated by charging the fee type, Initial Fee, using the Transaction Window (Action>New Transaction).
After starting a contract, the monthly periodic charges will post according to the date and criteria you enter in the Contract Worksheet.
A contract will continue charging out based on the scheduled events from the contract until the contract is manually de-activated or automatically deactivated after all scheduled and undated charges have fully charged out.

Contracts, Phases and Plans

Phase Matters: If the patient is entering a new phase of treatment - i.e. Moving from to Phase II, moving from Monitor Development to Comprehensive, or will be in for Retreatment, be sure to create a new Phase of treatment.

Confirm to Create Phase (this cannot be deleted)

Plan before activation: If you have created more than one treatment plan for a patient, be sure to mark the correct plan as Active, and select the correct contract associated with the Active treatment plan.

Click the plan to view or edit/add treatment plans.

Click the option to Edit Treatment Plan List...

Tops Tip: From the Clinical drawer, the bolded Phase and the bolded Plan are the active Phase/Plan indicators.

Where to locate the Contract

To locate, create, view or modify a contract of an active phase, click the Contracts/Ledgers tab of the patient's charge.
Within the Contracts column, couble-clicking the New button, Open Contract button or directly on the patient's contract will open the Contract Worksheet.

Contract Worksheet Definitions

Contract Worksheet - The contract worksheet is where the details reside for a recorded contract.

Status: Indicates whether the contract is uncharged, active or deactivated.

Accept Assignment checkbox: If you accept insurance from the patient or need to file a claim on their behalf, check the box.

Expected Insurance: If you accept assignment of insurance benefits, the Expected Insurance amount should reflect the expected benefit total the office expects to be paid by insurance. This can be $0 if the benefit payment is going to the patient.

Broken Retainer and Extended Tx Fees: Displays according to information specified in Practice Setup. This information is for reference only and can be updated in your defaults in TopsOrtho>Practice Set-up>Defaults or updated in the contract worksheet.

Patient/Account Holder/Plan: The patient’s name, account holder and treatment plan display at upper right.

Unscheduled Fee Blocks

Undated Charge section

Each field in this sections lets you include fees in the contract that do not need to be "Scheduled". To charge out the fee, the Transaction window is used. Action>New Transaction (or Command-T).
- Command-T>Initial Fee - Manually charging out the Initial Fee will activate the contract
  - The Initial Fee charged to the patient is typically equal to the amount the patient will be paying as their downpayment plus any up-front courtesies provided by the practice (i.e. insurance discounts, family courtesy, phase II courtesy etc).
  - When Accept Assignment is selected and the contract is created for purposes of submitting an insurance column, the initial fee in the first column labeled Amount is typically 25-30% of the contract total. The Copay column will represent the patient's initial fee.
- Command-T>Undated Contract Charge. All other unscheduled fees are charged out using the Undated Contract Charge option. The extra fees that are undated are still included in the contract total. Examples may include Invisalign upgrade, Records, and LifeTime retainers.
- The checkbox next to each fee item indicates whether or not it has been charged in the ledger. A contract will remain active until all undated contract charges have been posted to a ledger.
- It is important to note that undated charged cannot be voided nor can the charge date be modified.

Additional options to add undated charges

Transaction Window using Undated Charge fee type.

Quick Contract: Allows you to create a contract using the “Contract Calculator.”

Clear Contract: Click this if you need to start over before activating.
Split Initial Fee: Use if a patient needs to split the initial fee into multiple payments.
Insert Charges Below: Adds charges to the Payment Schedule.
Add Charges at End: Adds charges to the end of the Payment Schedule.
Delete Selected Charges: Deletes any uncharged fees in the Payment Schedule.
Reschedule Charge(s): Allows you to select charges already made to the patient’s ledger and reassign them to a later date. This allows patients to get current on sched- uled payments without adding new charges and negative adjustments.

Scheduled Totals: Total of scheduled payments. Includes all scheduled charges, but does not include unscheduled fees (e.g. the initial fee).

Retention Fee: Retainer fees, which must be charged manually, can be charged out separately in a contract worksheet. The retention fee, when added, will increase the contract total and can be charged out at the time of retention. To charge the Retention Fee to a patient's ledger from the contract worksheet, go to Action > New Transaction and select Appliance Removal/Retention.

Contract Total: Total of the contract, including any unscheduled contract fees (fees from the unscheduled fee block and the Retention Fee).

Calculated Insurance: Calculated expected insurance amount. Total-Total Copay = Calc Ins

Future Due: Number and Amount of charges that are due in the future. This is anything from the copay that has not yet charged out to the ledger

Charged: Number and Amount of copay charges posted to the patient’s Ledger.

In the example below, at left is an uncharged contract with no assignment. At right is an active contract that has accepted assignment:

Video Tutorial