Covering Letters for Multiple Admissions and Bills

Overview

Some letters to insurers and welfare funds list several admissions or bills in one letter:

• Dialysis covering letter: one patient's day-case admissions over a period, sent to a welfare fund. The patient's name and P/F/M No appear once at the top, followed by a table of BHT No, Date and Amount, and a total.
• OPD insurer invoice: several patients' OPD credit bills, with Bill No, Patient, Policy No and Amount, and a total.

The Covering Letters page lets you filter admissions or OPD credit bills, tick the ones to include, and generate one letter from a template. Each letter is saved with a running Reference No, can be reprinted, and marks the included admissions or bills so you can see they have already been sent.

For a letter about a single admission, use the Letters button on the Inpatient Dashboard instead. See Inpatient Covering Letters.

Menu: Inward → Covering Letters (also on Inpatient Analytics → Payment Reports → Covering Letters (Multiple BHTs / Bills), and in the OPD credit reports next to Report By Bill (With Letter)) Privilege: CoveringLetters (Inward → Clinical → Covering Letters (multi-record) in Manage Privileges)

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Before you start: create a covering letter template

An administrator creates the templates once.

1. Go to Administration → Manage Inpatient Services → Document Templates.
2. Click Add Covering Letter Template.
3. Enter a Name (for example "Dialysis Covering Letter").
4. Under Table columns, tick the columns the table should show. They always print in this order: Ref No (printed as BHT No or Bill No), Date, Patient, Policy No, Bill Amount, Company Amount. Bill Amount is the whole bill (for an admission, the final bill total). Company Amount is the credit company's share: for an admission, the amount committed to that company when the final bill was processed (the whole bill if no commitment was recorded); for an OPD credit bill it is the bill amount. Tick either or both. Each amount column gets its own total. A No column is added first and a Total row last.
5. Write the letter in Template Content. Put {rows_table} where the table should go.
6. Click Save Template.

An OPD insurer invoice template: Ref No, Patient, Policy No and Bill Amount are ticked, and the content uses {rows_table}, {total} and {count}.

To change a template later, use List Covering Letter Templates on the same tab.

Placeholders

Placeholder	Replaced with
{rows_table}	The table of selected admissions or bills, with a total row
{reference_no}	The letter's Reference No (for example coop/CL/26/0001)
{letter_date}	Today's date
{credit_company}, {credit_company_address}, {credit_company_contact}	The credit company chosen on the page, its address and its contact person
{name}	Patient name, only if every selected row is the same patient
{policy_no}	Policy / P/F/M No, only if every selected row has the same number
{total}	Total of the Bill Amount column
{company_total}	Total of the Company Amount column
{count}	Number of rows
{from_date}, {to_date}	Earliest and latest date among the selected rows
{issuer}, {issuer_address}, {issuer_phone}	The issuing institution's name, address and phone
{issuer_bank}, {issuer_branch}, {issuer_account_no}	The issuing institution's bank, branch and account number

{name} and {policy_no} are left blank when the rows belong to different patients or numbers, so a multi-patient invoice should use the Patient and Policy No columns instead.

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How to generate a letter

1. Open Inward → Covering Letters.
2. Choose the Record Type: Admissions or OPD Credit Bills.
3. Check the Issuing Institution (your hospital, or the diagnostics company if it issues the letter). Its name and bank details go into the letter.
4. Select the Credit Company (required).
5. Optionally select a Patient — useful for a dialysis letter.
6. Set From and To. For admissions this is the discharge date; for OPD bills it is the bill date.
7. For admissions you can also filter by Admission Type and Department. Only unsettled is unticked by default, so every matching BHT or bill is listed. Tick it to hide admissions or bills the credit company has already paid in full.
8. Click Fill.
9. Tick the rows to include. Selected and Selected total update as you tick.
10. Choose the Template and click Generate Letter.

Admissions for one credit company, with the bill amount and the credit company's share. Rows already in a saved letter show its Reference No.

The letter opens in a print view. Click Print to print it, Back to Batch to return to your list, or Saved Letters to see all letters.

A dialysis covering letter for two admissions of one patient. The patient and P/F/M No appear once; the table and total are built from the selected rows.

The rows are listed in the order they appear on the page, not the order you ticked them.

Already sent

If an admission or bill is already in a saved letter, its Reference No is shown in the Already sent column. You can still tick it — for example to send a replacement — but check first so the insurer is not billed twice.

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Saved letters: reprint or cancel

Click Saved Letters on the Covering Letters page.

1. Search by date, credit company or Reference No.
2. Click Reprint to open the letter exactly as it was generated.
3. Click Cancel to cancel a letter. Enter the reason and click Cancel Letter. The whole letter is cancelled, and its admissions or bills no longer show as Already sent. The Reference No is not reused.

Saved letters with Reprint and Cancel.

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Troubleshooting

The Covering Letters menu item is missing

Your user needs the Covering Letters (multi-record) privilege for the department you logged in to. Ask an administrator to add it under Administration → Manage Users → Manage Privileges, then log out and in again.

No templates in the Template list

No template of type CoveringLetter exists yet. See Before you start.

The bank details are blank in the letter

{issuer_bank}, {issuer_branch} and {issuer_account_no} come from the issuing institution's record. If they are not filled in there, type the bank details into the template as fixed text instead.

"No records found"

Check the date range (discharge date for admissions, bill date for OPD), the credit company, and whether Only unsettled is ticked and hiding records the company has already paid.

Related pages

• Inpatient Covering Letters — single-admission letters from the Inpatient Dashboard
• Admin — Credit Companies
• Inward Admission Insurance and Credit Company Details