This article provides an overview of three main billing metrics essential for tracking and understanding your practice's financial performance
There are three key metrics essential for tracking and understanding your practice's financial performance:
1. Total Billings (by service date)
2. Total Billings (by service created date)
3. Payments (by paid date)
Each metric includes the comparative figure for the same period last year, allowing you to see year-on-year trends and gauge your practice's growth or areas needing focus.
To navigate to these metrics, go to Clinic Insights > Past clinic metrics > Billings tab
The sections included in this article are:
Understanding the metrics
1. Total Billings by Service Date
- Definition: This figure represents total billings by service date (attendance date). This metric reflects the total billings inclusive of GST based on the actual date the service was delivered or attended by the patient. Billings will include those from inactive or deleted users.
- Usage: It’s ideal for understanding the revenue generated on specific attendance dates, showing a clear view of billings on the days services were provided, regardless of when the service was recorded or created in the system.
2. Total Billings by Service Created Date
- Definition: This figure represents total billings inclusive of GST and is based on the date the service (invoice) was created or recorded in the system, not necessarily the date the service was attended.
- Usage: It’s useful for tracking billings in real time as they’re entered, helping you to monitor billings. Additionally, this metric offers year-on-year comparisons for a specific time range, allowing a quick assessment of performance trends
3. Payments by Paid Date
- Definition: This figure shows the total payments received, inclusive of GST, based on the date payment was received rather than when the service was provided or recorded.
- Usage: This metric is helpful for understanding cash flow, as it shows when funds are actually collected. It allows for year-on-year comparisons, showing payment collection trends and highlighting potential delays or patterns in receiving payments. Payments can also be viewed by individual provider to see who is generating the most collected revenue.
In short:
- Total Billings by Service Date tracks revenue based on the attendance date.
- Total Billings by Service Created Date tracks when services (invoices) are recorded.
- Payments by Paid Date tracks the actual date of receipt of the payment.
Each metric gives a unique perspective, offering insights into revenue generation, billing activity, and cash flow.
Key Components
To access the breakdowns specified in the tools below, click on one of the three metrics outlined. These views and tools can then be used to analyze the metric according to the definitions provided above.
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Billings or Payments and Concentration by Practitioner: Displays total practice billings or payments per practitioner and their contribution percentage. View data over any time frame (weekly, monthly, etc.) with last year’s comparison shown as red dots.
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Trend of Billings or Payments vs. Same Time Last Year: Shows billings or payments vs. the same time last year over time. Use filters for daily, weekly, or monthly views, and compare up to two past years.
If you are viewing data over a longer period of time (e.g. a year) then it is possible to use the 'group by' drop-down filter on the graph to view the data on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis to understand how your billings have changed over time.You can also compare data over multiple previous periods. Viewing last month's data and comparing to last '2 years' will show display 2 additional lines on trend graphs by using the "Compare periods" filter:
NOTE: "Last year" refers to the same time 52 weeks prior (not date to date). This is specifically designed so you can compare the trend of billing for these time frames (i.e. Monday v Monday) rather than comparing a Saturday billing against a Friday billing.
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Billings or Payments by MBS Item: Shows billed or paid items over the selected time frame. Filter by practitioner to view individual billing patterns.
Each item billed or paid by your practice is represented on this graph. If an item has not been billed or paid during the selected time frame then it will not appear on this graph. -
Billings or Payments by Appointment Type: Displays billings or payments linked to specific appointment types in your practice management software.
Use both the breakdown by MBS item and the breakdown by appointment type to understand what Practitioners are billing when they use a certain appointment type - for example, are items that typically take more time being billed alongside standard appointment types?
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Total Billings or Payments by Eligibility: Breaks down billings or payments by bulk billing eligibility category with hover details
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Average Billings by Weekday (total billing reports only): Shows average billings per weekday. Use filters for specific item numbers or appointment types.
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List of Billings or Payments: Provides a detailed table of billings or payments (GST inclusive) for the selected period, with filters for practitioner and item numbers.
Key filters and tips
Use key filters in the filters menu on the left-hand side:
- Use the toggle "Show Providers hidden in settings" to show any providers that are not ticked to include in metrics.
- Use "Compare Periods" to overlay multiple past periods on trend graphs.
- Adjust the "group by" filter to daily, weekly, or monthly views, depending on the analysis period.
- Use 'Provider' or 'Select items' filters to tailor insights to your clinic’s operational focus.
- You can zoom in on our graphs to view the data more easily! Hold down your left mouse button and select a section of the graph to zoom in on. You can reset your view by using the Reset Zoom button on the graph.
- Use the "Age bracket" filter to filter your list of billings into age brackets. Here you can select one bracket or multiple
- Use the filter 'select eligibility type' in your sidebar to filter your whole page and list of billings below via eligibility type.