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How to Manage Patient Payment Plans

Alyssa Elso avatar
Written by Alyssa Elso
Updated yesterday

Practice users have complete control over all patient payment plans, whether they’re active, accepted, delinquent, retrying, proposed, or archived. This guide outlines how to view summaries, track payments, and take key actions like editing, charging, canceling, or downloading plans.

Payment Plans Overview Summary

The top of the Payment Plans page offers a dashboard-style summary:

  • Plan Payments: Total payments received from payment plans in the last 24 months.

  • Under Contract Balance: The amount still due from all current payment plans. This includes:

    • Active Plan Balances

    • Delinquent Plan Balances

    • Retrying Plan Balances

  • Revenue Graph: A bar chart showing payments received per month from payment plans.


1. Active Plan Balance

Plans move to “Active” once the first payment or downpayment is made. You’ll see:

  • Patient Name

  • Plan Name

  • Plan Amount

  • Remaining Amount

  • Completed Installments

  • Next Payment Date

Available Actions:

  • Edit Plan

  • Cancel Plan

  • Download Plan

Edit Plan

When you edit a plan, you can:

  • View all installments

  • Charge or Mark Installment as Paid Offline

  • Change installment date or amount

Charge Installment

Click Charge to open a pre-filled popup to process the payment:

Mark As Paid Offline

Mark an installment as paid offline if processed outside PbN:

  • No receipt is generated.

  • ⚠️ Note: This payment does not sync to your PMS. Update your PMS manually.

Edit Installment

You can change:

  • Amount: Adjust differences to the next or all future installments.

  • Date: Set a new date and choose how to apply it:

Options include:

  • Don’t change future dates

  • Shift future dates by the same number of days

  • Set all remaining installments to this new date

Example: Choosing the 31st will schedule payments on the last day of each month.


2. Accepted Plan Balance

Plans that are accepted (by patient or practice) but not yet started (no payment made) appear here.

You’ll see:

  • Patient Name

  • Plan Name

  • Plan Amount

Available Actions:

  • Charge & Start Payment Plan

  • Archive Plan

  • Download Plan

Before starting, ensure a default payment method is added. Click on the Plan Name to view full details:



3. Delinquent Plan Balance

These are plans where payments failed and retry attempts were exhausted.

You’ll see:

  • Total outstanding balance for all delinquent plans

  • Failed attempts log per plan

Available Actions:

  • Edit Plan

  • Cancel Plan

  • Download Plan

Click into a plan to manually Charge & Start Payment Plan again. If successful, the plan returns to “Active.”


4. Retrying Balance Plans

Plans with failed payments currently in retry mode appear here. The system will attempt to charge again based on your configured retry schedule.

  • Successful charge = plan moves to “Active”

  • All attempts failed = plan moves to “Delinquent”


5. Proposed Plans

Plans shown here have been sent to the patient as a one-time or 3-option proposal.

Key behaviors:

  • Patient must accept within 60 days

  • If three “Best Plans” are sent, all show here until one is accepted

  • On acceptance, remaining proposals auto-archive

You’ll see:

  • Patient Name

  • Plan Name

  • Created On

  • Plan Amount

Available Actions:

  • Manually Accept Plan (if signed paper consent obtained)

  • Archive Plan

  • Send Reminder

Manually Accepting a Plan

Click the ✅ icon and confirm:

“This payment plan is currently in a proposed state. Would you like to manually mark this plan as accepted? Please confirm that you have taken patient consent on paper.”

⚠️ A signed paper agreement is mandatory before manual acceptance.

Once accepted:

  • Plan moves to Accepted

  • Remaining proposed plans are archived


6. Archived Plans

These include:

  • Completed: All payments received

  • Cancelled: Manually canceled

  • Expired: Not accepted within 60 days

Archived plans are view-only for historical reference.


Summary

Practice by Numbers offers complete transparency and flexibility in managing patient payment plans. Whether you're following up on a missed payment, editing an upcoming installment, or reviewing completed plans, the Payment Plans page is your central hub for action.

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