IMS Specialty Services Inc.

The Digital Office™ accounting system is a “tried & true” veteran with over 18 years of experience. Like all the features in the software, the accounting is based on the ideas of efficiency, speed, building and managing a practice. The allowance for up to 10 responsible parties per patient, flexible template contracts, speed & ease of data entry, ultra high security and being management oriented… make for an incredibly robust system to handle the financial needs of your practice.

With IMS you can use "Daily Accounting", a method that allows the patient, or responsible party, to select the day of the month that is most convenient for making a payment.  Allowing the patient, or responsible party, to select the payment due-date has several benefits.

• It is a commitment to make the payment on a specific date of their choosing. 
• It then becomes reasonable for the practice to take action for nonpayment within 10-15 days rather than after 30-60 days.  Making a phone call after 10 days becomes practical since payments from patients are not all due simultaneously.  The call can be friendly and helpful, but it aids in training the patient to pay on time. 
• A late fee is normally charged after 15 days.  Why wait until later? 
• "Promises to pay" are recorded in the Note System that pops up at the beginning of the day for follow-up.  These notes are permanently recorded in the patient's financial history. 
• Collection letters are designed for 10, 20, 30, 45 and 60 days.

The typical orthodontic practice relies on the responsible party (either through coupon books, statements or the honor system) to periodically make payments, and generally assign the first day of the month as their due-date.  It then classifies them as delinquent on the 30th, or last, day of the month.  Statistics show that 70% of the patients pay within 30 days and 30% do not.  The next action, a late fee, is usually assessed after 60 days and the first calls and/or letters go out after 90 days.  With this method, the average practice will have one to two month's income tied up in past due receivables.  Use of the Digital Office's© daily accounting system can help reduce this past due amount to approximately one-half of a month's income.
 
Other Accounts Receivable Features
 

• Accounts can be located by account number, patient name, or any of the billing party names.
• Patient accounts are automatically updated for regular fees and for any charges outside the contract.
• Down payments can be paid over several months; monthly fees can be suspended or varied.
• Statements can be sent to every patient or just to those who are past due.  You decide which patients are to never get a statement and which ones are to always be sent a statement.  You decide which accounts are to receive a late charge and if the charge is to be a percentage or a specific amount.
• You can have up to ten different billing parties per patient and each billing party account is tracked separately.  Statements can be sent to each billing party - or not.
• A ledger containing a complete history of charges and payments is automatically maintained on each patient account.
• Coupon books, if desired, are easily produced.
• An unlimited number of “pre-defined” contract terms can be picked from a list when entering new contracts.
• Monthly credit card payments can automatically post to patient accounts and to your (the practice’s) bank account.
• Financial Truth & Lending contracts are generated automatically.
• Adjustment-free statements.  Errors made on statements during the month can be corrected without creating adjustments to the patient account, minimizing unwanted entries on patient ledgers.
• Financial tracking functions create and maintain a history of all the corrections made to a patient account, including changes of monthly payment, contract changes, late-fee changes, and statement holds.  Most systems do not maintain a file on changes made to patient accounts and how they were made.