A payment may be incorrectly synced to another family member due to remaining balances tied to inactive providers in the office’s Dentrix or Open Dental (OD) systems. This issue arises when either system allows providers to be inactivated while leaving pending balances open. Additionally, when a payment is made, the system typically applies it to the oldest balance in the ledger, which may belong to a family member other than the guarantor.
Important Update: PbN now offers a setting to apply payments to the newest balance instead of the oldest one for Open Dental and Dentrix. Configuring this option appropriately can help prevent payments from being misapplied to the wrong family member. It’s highly recommended to review and adjust this setting based on your practice’s billing preferences. This can be found under Payments > Settings.
Root Cause
Both Dentrix and Open Dental allow providers to be inactivated without requiring the closure of all pending balances. If an inactive provider has an outstanding balance, the payment can mistakenly be applied to the oldest balance in the ledger, which might be associated with another family member. This results in the payment being synced incorrectly.
How This Happens
Oldest Balance Application: By default, when a payment is made, the system searches for the oldest balance in the ledger. If this belongs to someone other than the guarantor (such as another family member), the payment may be attributed to the wrong person.
Inactive Provider Balances: The system does not automatically differentiate balances associated with inactive providers. As a result, these unresolved balances can unintentionally absorb new payments, causing confusion during sync.
Newest Balance Configuration Option: You can now configure your PMS integration settings to apply payments to the newest balance instead. This can reduce the likelihood of payments going toward inactive or outdated balances. However, this setting must be enabled manually in PbN.
👉 Be sure to assess your internal processes and decide whether applying payments to the newest or oldest balance best suits your workflow.
Steps to Resolve
Contact Dentrix or Open Dental Support: Reach out to Dentrix or OD support to help close out any old balances associated with inactive providers. This is crucial to avoid future syncing errors.
Run the Provider A/R Report: Use the Provider A/R report in Dentrix or Open Dental to identify inactive providers with remaining balances. This will help you take corrective action proactively.
Configure the Payment Sync Setting in PbN: Visit your Payments Settings page in Practice by Numbers and choose whether payments should be applied to the oldest or newest balance. This configuration helps prevent misallocation of payments due to family member account structure or provider inactivity.
Reallocate Credits in the PMS: If a payment was already applied incorrectly, you may need to reallocate the credit manually in your PMS to ensure the payment is correctly attributed to the guarantor or the appropriate family member.
Example
Below is a screenshot showcasing how this issue may appear when an inactive provider has remaining balances that draw payments incorrectly.
