Database Utilities are powerful tools that allow you to make sweeping changes and updates to your entire MacPractice database with a few simple clicks. They can be very useful for maintenance tasks or when you need to make changes to many accounts to improve your office's workflow.

This article will cover some of the most common database utilities used by our offices, and how to utilize them properly.

If you are looking for a more complete list of all Database Utilities, please click here.

Warning: Before running any Database Utility, you should always ensure the following:

1. You should always make sure you have a current backup. A Backup is NECESSARY before performing database utilities.

2. You should make sure that no one is currently logged into MacPractice.

Move Patient to Another Account

The "Move Patient To Another Account" Utility is used to move a Patient from one Account to either another pre-existing Account, or to move a Patient to a brand new Account. This Utility is great for situations like when a child on one Account has come of age and wants to be on their own Account so the parents aren't paying their medical bills anymore, or in cases where a family splits up but continues to see the practice separately.

This Utility cannot be used to merge duplicate patient records together. Unfortunately in those situations you'll need to re-enter the missing information into the appropriate Account, and then archive or delete the invalid Account.

Note: Before using the "Move Patient to Another Account" Database Utility, a patient needs to have...

• The Relationship to Primary set to anything BUT "Self" in the Patients Ability > Patient Tab.

• You only can move a patient if they are not the Primary Guarantor of the account.

• All unapplied balances connected to the account the patient is being moved from should be addressed before running this Utility. 

Moving A Patient To Their Own Account

Go to the Managers ability and select Database Utilities in the sidebar. In the Database Utilities menu, select select Move Patient To Another Account. You'll be presented with the following fields:

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The first row is the Account and Patient number, Last Name, and First Name of the Patient who is moving.

We strongly advise clicking the Magnifying Glass icon to search for and select the specific Patient.

The second row is the Destination Account number, Destination Last Name, and Destination First Name. In this scenario, you'll leave the 2nd row blank as shown in the image, as this indicates that you wish to move the Patient to a new Account.

Once satisfied, click the "Go" button in the lower right corner of the MacPractice window. You'll be reminded to ensure all users are logged out of MacPractice at this time. Click "OK" when you have confirmed this is true.

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You'll then be taken to a prompt to automatically save a Backup. If you have already confirmed you have a fresh backup available as indicated in the beginning in the article, you can cancel this prompt. Otherwise, we still strongly recommend creating a backup before running any Database Utility.

The next prompt will confirm that you wish to run the DB Utility. Click Continue when ready.

After the patient has been moved, the patient's new account will display with the new account number. Make sure you double check their demographics and insurance information and make any necessary adjustments.

Moving A Patient To A Pre-Existing Account

Moving a Patient To Another Account works exactly the same way as Moving a Patient to their Own Account. The only difference is instead of leaving the 2nd row blank, you'll select a Destination Account instead, as shown in the below screenshot.

Once satisfied, click the "Go" button in the lower right corner of the MacPractice window. You'll be reminded to ensure all users are logged out of MacPractice at this time. Click "OK" when you have confirmed this is true.

You'll then be taken to a prompt to automatically save a Backup. If you have already confirmed you have a fresh backup available as indicated in the beginning in the article, you can cancel this prompt. Otherwise, we still strongly recommend creating a backup before running any Database Utility.

The next prompt will confirm that you wish to run the DB Utility. Click Continue when ready.

After the patient has been moved, the patient's destination account will display with their new account number. Make sure you double check their demographics and insurance information and make any necessary adjustments.

Things to Know

You may move patients who have financial histories and even remaining balances to their own or to other accounts. However, a couple of specific items cannot be left unresolved on the ledger or it may prevent the patient from being moved.

Make sure all payments are applied to the account before moving the patient. Unapplied payments will display in red.

Unpaid financial charges apply to the entire account and will prevent the account from moving. Either apply a payment for that finance charge, or enter a negative adjustment to zero it out before moving the patient. If the finance charge should still apply, you may choose to go back into the original account and remove the negative adjustment.

If the patient is the primary of the account and the patient-primary relationship is set to "Self" you will not be allowed to move the record.

You may choose to move one of the patients from this primary account to another. Or if the rest of the family account needs to remain together, you could temporarily change the patient relationship status to another option, move the account, and then verify or correct the relationship indicator on  both account's patient records.

Raise/Lower Fee Schedule by %/$

The Raise/Lower Fee Schedule Database Utilities are used to make wide adjustments to a fee schedule. There are actually two utilities that perform this function.

• Raise/Lower Fee Schedule by %: This utility allows you to raise or lower all fees in a selected fee schedule by a percentage amount. For example, you can choose to lower all fees by 4.5%. This utility also contains options to control how the utility handles rounding. The image above reflects this utility.

• Raise/Lower Fee Schedule by $: This utility allows you to raise or lower all fees in a selected fee schedule by a given dollar amount. For example, you can choose to raise all fees by a flat $50 rate.

As an precaution, you may want to make a duplicate of the fee schedule you intend to run this utility for. You can do this by navigating to the References Ability, selecting the Fee Schedule node, then selecting the Fee Schedule in question. From the Menu, select Edit > Duplicate Fee Schedule.

For either Utility, you'll first set whether you want to Raise or Lower, then select the Fee Schedule you wish to adjust.

If you're using the percentage utility, you'll need to indicate the percentage amount you want to raise or lower by in the Raise By/Lower By field. Then, select the rounding option. You can choose to round to the nearest dollar amount, whether to round UP to the nearest dollar amount, or not to round at all.
For example, if a $100 dollar fee was increased by 4.1%, you'd be left with 104.10.
Do Not Round would leave this amount as is.
Round to the nearest dollar would round this value DOWN to 104.00.
Round up to the nearest dollar would round this value UP to 105.00.

If you're using the dollar amount utility, all you need to do is indicate the dollar amount which you want to raise or lower your fees in the Fee Schedule by.

Remove Insurance Portion

The Remove Insurance Portion Database Utility allows the user to remove unexpected insurance portions from patients' ledgers. You can choose to run this for a specific account, or for all patients within your database.

First, you'll select whether you want to impact all patients in the database, or a specific account. If you select "For Account", a field will appear allowing you to enter an account number.

Next, you'll set whether you want the utility to hide charges with accurate portions, or charges that aren't on outstanding claims. These are checkboxes; you can either have one, both, or none checked.

By clicking "Show Charges with Insurance Portions", the Charge Table will populate with all charges with insurance portions. By scrolling right, you can see the status of the Primary and Secondary Insurance, if applicable. You'll also be able to see the Insurance Portion currently on the shown charges.

From here, you can simply check and uncheck charges you wish to remove the insurance portion of. Once you're satisfied, clicking Go will run the database utility for those checked charges.

Revert Write-Off To Open Balance

This database utility relates directly to write-off changes made in MacPractice 10.7. Please click here for a detailed article on those write-off changes and how to use the Revert Write-Off To Open Balance utility.

Update Account Provider

The Update Account Provider Database Utility is used to adjust the Account Provider (located in the Account Tab of the Patient Ability) from one Provider to another Provider for all patient accounts in the database.

First, you'll select the Provider you want to change all your patient accounts FROM in the "Current Provider" field.
Then, you'll select the Provider you want to change all of your patient accounts TO in the "Update to Provider" field.

Finally, if you want to adjust the Account Office for all patient accounts, you'll want to check the "Also Update Office" checkbox and use the "Update Office To" pop up to select the desired office.

When satisfied, click the Go button to run the database utility.

Update Account Statement Status

This utility updates the "Where To Send Statements" and the "Monthly Statement Options" fields, located in the Account Tab of the Patient Ability, for all patients in your database. This is often used to standardize how statements are sent for your patients.

First, you'll select the Statement Status which you wish to transition patient accounts FROM using the "Current Statement Status" field.
Then you'll select the Statement Status you want to transition patient accounts TO in the "Update to Status" field.
Finally, you can choose whether you also wish to update the "Send Statement To" field for all impacted patient accounts.

When satisfied, click the Go button to run the database utility.

Update Fee Schedule

The Update Fee Schedule Database Utility is used to update several characteristics of the codes within a Fee Schedule. The Utility will update either all of your Fee Schedules or a specific Fee Schedule, and you can also hone down and change characteristics for a defined range of charge codes.

First, you'll define which Fee Schedule you wish to update in the "Update Fees in Fee Schedule" pop-up menu. If you want to update all of your Fee Schedules, you can select the "All Fee Schedules" option. Then, if there is a specific range of codes you would like to update, set that range in the "Code Start" and "Code End" fields.

Next, you'll use the checkboxes on the left side to choose which characteristics to update, and then use the corresponding pop up menus to choose what to update that characteristic TO. For example, if I wanted to update all fee schedule codes to have Dr. Awesome set as the default provider, I'd check the Default Provider checkbox, then select "Bob Awesome" in the Default Provider pop-up.

With this utility, you can update:

• Default Provider

• Default Office

• Place of Service

• Type of Service

• Default Recall

• Procedure Type

• Procedure Category

• Set "Require Co-Pay"

• Set "Require Lab"

When satisfied, click the Go button to run the Database Utility.

Update Patient Fee Schedule

This particular utility is used to update the Default Fee Schedule, selected in the Patient Tab of the Patients Ability, for all patients with a given Fee Schedule selected.

First, you need to select what Fee Schedule you want to change FROM by selecting the Fee Schedule in the "Update All Patients with Fee Schedule" field.

Then, you need to select the Fee Schedule you want to switch these patients TO in the "To Fee Schedule" field.

Once you're satisfied, click the Go button to run this utility. All patients with the first selected Fee Schedule will then have the second Fee Schedule selected.

Update Patient Insurance

This database utility is used to adjust patients with one insurance carrier and plan to a different insurance carrier and plan.

First, you'll select the carrier which you want to change patients FROM in the "Current Carrier" field. If there's a specific plan that you want to transition patients from, you can define that in the corresponding "Plan Name" field.

Then, you can select the carrier which you want to change patients TO in the "Update to Carrier" field, along with any specific plan to transition patients to if desired.

Finally, if you want to define the start/end dates for each patient, you can do so by checking the "Update New Insurance's Start Date and Old Insurance's End Date As" checkbox and then using the date field to define a specific date. This will serve as the new insurance's Start Date and the old insurance's End Date.

When satisfied, click the Go button to run the utility.

Update Patient Provider

This Utility is used to update the default Provider for all patients from one provider to another provider. This Provider field is located in the Patient Tab of the Patients Ability. This utility is typically used when a provider is leaving the practice and it is necessary to migrate all patients over to a different provider. You can also use this utility to update the Default Office for those patients.

To run this particular utility, simply select the Provider you wish to move patients FROM in the first field "Update All Patients With Provider". Then, in the "To Provider" field, select the Provider you want those patients to be set to.

If you want to update the office in the same step, simply check the "Also Update Office" checkbox and then select the intended office. When you are satisfied, click Go to run the database utility.

Update Procedure Type By Code

The Update Procedure Type By Code Database Utility is used to globally change the Procedure Type of all fees in the selected Fee Schedule to a selected Procedure Type. You can configure this utility to designate a range of Fee Schedule Codes that you wish to adjust.

First, you'll select which Procedure Type you wish to change indicated procedures TO in the "Update All Procedures to Type" drop down menu.

Once this is set, you can then set a range of codes to change in the "From Code" and "To Code" fields. For example, if you wanted to adjust the Procedure Type for all codes leading with D, you would set "D0000" and "D9999" in the From and To fields respectively.

Finally, you'll set which Fee Schedule you'd like to impact. Once you're satisfied with your selections, click the "Go" button to proceed.