Import Patient Payments

Patient payments often arrive as a file rather than one at a time at the counter. Import the file and each row posts the way a counter payment does.

Before You Start

You need the Administrator role to upload, and the User role to read the run’s payments and fix rejected rows. Use the Patient payments (CSV) template that ships with ClaimPod, or add a Payment table to a template of your own. Each row needs an amount, the date the payment was received, and something that says whose money it is: the patient’s account number, the statement number from the stub they returned, or the claim number.

Upload the File

1. In the sidebar, select Batches, then the Import Batches tab.
2. Select Upload File.
3. Choose the file and the Patient payments (CSV) template.
4. Select Upload.

Result: the run’s Payments tile counts what was staged, what posted, and what was already on the books. Each posted payment is applied to the patient’s open balances oldest first, open account charges included; a row that names a claim number pays that claim. Money beyond what is owed is a credit on the last balance paid, which may be the account, and a patient with nothing open gets the whole payment posted to the account as a credit.

Check Each Payment

The run page has a Payments section when the file staged payments. Each row shows the file Row, the Patient, what was Paid, how much was Applied, any Credit, and the Outcome:

Outcome	What it means
Posted	The payment is on the ledger
Posted · credit due back by 11/18/2026	It posted, and the overage is a credit to refund by that date
Posted to account · credit due back by 11/18/2026	Nothing was open, so it all went to the account as a credit
Already posted	The same payment is already on the ledger, so it was not posted again
Held for patient review	The patient match needs a person to confirm it
Not posted	The row was rejected or could not post. See Fix a Rejected Row
Pending	The row has not been promoted yet

What a Row May Carry

Column	Required	Notes
Account number, statement number or claim number	One of them	When a row carries more than one, they must all point at the same patient.
Amount	Yes	Greater than zero.
Payment date	Yes	The day the money was received.
Method	No	Cash, check, card or ACH. The standard template reads CHK, CC, CASH and EFT; anything else files as other.
Check or reference number	No	Kept on the ledger entry.
Payment ID	No	The file’s own identifier. Map it when the file has one.
Memo	No	Kept as the entry’s note.

Re-sending a File

ClaimPod remembers every payment it has posted from a file, so a cumulative export never posts a payment twice. Repeated rows show as duplicates on the run, not as errors.

The file’s payment ID is the key when it is mapped; otherwise the patient, amount, date and reference together identify the payment, whichever number the file used to name the patient.

A check with the same patient, date, amount and check number as one already posted is a duplicate even when only one of them carries a payment ID. Two same-day payments of the same amount by one patient in one file, with no payment ID or check number, post as two payments.

Fix a Rejected Row

A row is rejected when it has no account, statement or claim number, when a number is unknown, when the numbers name different patients, when the amount is not a positive number, when the payment date is missing, or when the reference lookup failed.

1. In the sidebar, select Work Queues.
2. Open the Import Review queue for the day the file imported. Rows from every import that day share it.
3. In the queue list, select the row. The File row fact names the row and the file, and the Payment section holds the payment.
4. Correct the field the row’s message names.
5. Select Complete.

Result: the row is checked again and the payment posts.

Caution

A payment dated in the past still appears under payments received on the patient’s next statement. A statement reports what arrived since the previous one was printed, whatever date the file gives.

Related: Upload an Import File · Review an Import Row · Import Mappings