BUILDING MEDSERIES4 TO BALANCE
by Larry Carter
Whether you’re the hospital’s CFO, the Manager of Information Systems, or a
Senior Systems Analyst, great care must be taken to ensure that the system is built to balance.
One of the most challenging aspects to producing accurate financial reports in MS4 is ensuring
that the AR/ADT master files are synchronized to balance. Most mangers take a brief glimpse at
the daily A/R Status Report to see if it states that the Accounts Receivable is balanced from
day-end processing. This report, however, only states whether the Charge Master and Transaction
Master are in balance with the Location Master. The accuracy of this report is usually taken
for granted. If the inbound interfaces are working correctly and if no financial transactions
where dropped, the A/R Status Report is designed to calculate transaction balances in key
master files, but the actual movement of Accounts Receivable can only be accurately tracked
if the master files were built in synch.
Medsersies4 uses a series of AR/ADT master files and description keys, along with General
Ledger master files and revenue center account numbers to ensure the financial revenue cycle
is built in balance. Since Medseries4 has the capability of processing non A/R financial
transitions within the AR/ADT financial processing module, Financial Service must ensure that
the information technology department is aware of which Accounting G/L numbers are non patient
revenue generating. One of the biggest overlooked mistakes that cause the Accounts Receivable
to be out of balance, but not tracked on the financial reports occurs when the hospital builds
G/L cash accounts and G/L non patient revenue accounts in the A/R master files as patient
revenue generating accounts.
The General Ledger Description Master (GPPGLDS) is the only file in AR/ADT that will
validate that the charges in the Charge Master (PHPCHRG) or the Price Master (PHPPRIC) have
valid G/L numbers, so it becomes imperative to identify whether the charge record will impact
patient revenue. In a normal accounting transaction, there would be one A/R account and one
G/L Cash account, so if non-patient revenue is being filtered through the AR/ADT systems, such
as cafeteria sales, or medical record fees, the charge records and the G/L accounting codes
need to be marked as non-revenue in the G/L Description Master. The same logic should be used
for non-patient allowances. The hospital should consider separating the G/L code for Bad Debt
and Accounts Receivable cash accounts, since the Daily Revenue Reports would process all
accounts in the G/L Description Master identified as revenue in the Charge Master if they are
flagged with an “R” (Patient Revenue) in the G/L Description Master. Holding
accounts can be set up in the general ledger system to receive both cash accounts (patient
revenue and non-patient revenue) that send transactions to the accounting system.
Hospitals that are live with Medseries4 AR/ADT should utilize query reporting tool for
discovering discrepancies in file building. For the Systems Analyst, it all begins with
ensuring that the A/R Description Master keys are in synch the G/L DM. Since the accounting
department normally has more cost centers than is needed to build the Charge Master, it is
recommended to separate all non-patient accounting cost centers from the revenue generating
cost centers. As the department codes are built in the A/R Description Master, it would be a
good idea to list the non-patient revenue department codes as ‘NPR – DPT ####’,
i.e. NPR-Dept 2910, so that queries can be developed to validate that the two files are in synch.
Another query can be built to ensure that all patient revenue departments submitted and built in
the G/L Description Master are synchronized with the Group Codes in the A/R Description Master.
Due to the file format on the master files, it is also recommended to download the query reports
into Excel to compile a complete analysis report. One important thing to look for in the G/L
Description Master is that both the A/R G/L control number and the B/D G/L control number are
flagged as non-revenue codes.
A thorough analysis should be performed on an ongoing basis on the Charge Master/Price Master
to ensure that they are synchronized with the Description Master, G/L Description Master and the
Location Master. These are the master files that produce most of the financial reports, and they
can only produce accurate reports if the system is synchronized.
If you would like more information on MS4 or our other Siemens services please contact us at
vcs@getvitalized.com or call our corporate offices at
610-444-1233. You can read previous newsletters on our website at
www.getvitalized.com in the Resource section.