Why do I need to run Month End?

January is right around the corner and that means we are coming up on Year End. I get asked a lot of questions about what the process is this time of year. Is there a special report I should run? Is there anything I need to know about running Year End? The fact is there is nothing different to running Year End as there is to running Month End.

Month End is a very important process to keeping your system running smoothly and making sure all your data is as accurate as possible. It is also a very important security feature and should not be ignored. I am surprised how many offices have not run a Month End for months, or even years. Let’s go through exactly what the Month End process does so you have a clear understanding of how important it is.

The Month End process does four main things . . .

It will age your account balances. This will move your current balance into 30 days, 30 days into 60 and so on. On many reports, including the Provider A/R Totals report, it will move your ending accounts receivable balance into the beginning balance for the new month.
Your ledger for that month will now be placed into history, which means that you cannot edit or delete anything on the patient’s ledger. You will need to make an adjustment if you want to fix something on the ledger.
The Month End will lock up any clinical notes that have not been signed so there can be no editing to your clinical documentation. If you need to change a clinical note, you can do an addendum.
It will reset any insurance benefit used back to zero if the insurance plan is scheduled to renew. This becomes very important for your December Month End because so many plans renew in January.

For more information about the Month End process, please check out these other blog posts.