Payment plans overview

What is a payment plan?

A payment plan allows a payer to spread the full cost of treatment over multiple smaller payments.

It includes a payment summary and at least one payment schedule.

The summary shows what treatment is being paid for and its full cost. The schedule shows how many charges the cost is split into and when each charge will appear on the payer's account.

What types of payments plans can I create?

You can create orthodontic or non-orthodontic payment plans. The table below summarizes the differences.

Orthodontic	Non-Orthodontic
Created for an active orthodontic treatment plan.	Created for planned or completed procedures, or administrative charges.
For patient, guarantor, or insurance accounts.	For patients accounts.
Additional charges cannot be added to an active plan.	Additional charges from the same clinic group can be added to an active plan.
Earned revenue is tracked based on the orthodontic treatment plan schedule.	Earned revenue is tracked when planned procedures are marked as in-progress or completed in charting.

How do I create a payment plan?

You create payment plans from Patient > Financials. Each payment plan has one summary, and one or more payment schedules.

The table below summarizes the workflow steps to get you started.

For step-by-step instructions and additional tips, select the workflow name to open an article about that step.

	Workflow	Description	Example
1	Create an orthodontic payment plan summary. or Create a non-orthodontic payment plan summary.	The payment plan summary lets you: Pick the treatment that is included in the payment plan. Confirm the overall cost of the payment plan. Orthodontic plans only: Decide how the responsibility for the cost is split between patient and insurance.	For example, the orthodontic treatment code D8080 associated with this plan costs $5000.00. The patient is responsible for $3000.00 and their insurance covers $2000.00.
2	Create a payment schedule for each responsible party.	A payment schedule lets you: Break the amount owed into smaller charges. Schedule when these smaller charges will be automatically created. Each responsible party has their own payment schedule.	For the patient amount: I split their $3000.00 balance from the summary into 15 charges. Each charge will be $200.00. I've scheduled the charges to generate on the 11th of each month. For the insurance amount: I split the $2000.00 balance from the summary into 4 charges. Each charge will be $500.00. I've scheduled the charges to generate once a quarter.
3	Activate the payment plan summary and the payment schedules.	Payment plan summaries and schedules must be set to active before they will generate charges on the patient's record.	My patient's first $200.00 charge is scheduled for two weeks from today. But I have to make sure the summary and schedule are active, otherwise the charge won't automatically appear in two weeks.