Online Payment Management

Patients can make online payments using the Patient Portal.

Payments can be made with or without logging into the portal. Payments can only be made online when using XCharge (OpenEdge), Edge Express, or PayConnect.

Note: Payments taken using CareCredit through Lookup or Apply in the CareCredit Portal are also recorded as Online Payments. They should be processed using these instructions.

Enable Patient Portal Payments

Follow these steps to enable patient portal payments.

  1. Enable X-Web / Patient Portal Payments in the program link for the credit card processor being used.
  2. Restart Open Dental to enable Patient Portal Transactions and Pending Online Payments from the Tools Menu.
  3. In eServices Signup, More Settings tab, select Make Payments as a portal feature.
  4. Provide patients Patient Portal Access.
  5. Provide a link to access Patient Portal.
    • On the practice website, provide a link to the Hosted Payment URL or Hosted URL. Generate a URL from the eServices Patient Portal window.
    • On statements, add the [statementURL] or [statementShortURL] output text field. See Statement Layout. These URLs launch the Patient Portal Sign in window where patients can log in to view an online version of the statement or make a payment.
    • When generating statements from the Billing List, also trigger text messages that include a clickable URL to the Patient Portal Sign in window. Include the [StatementURL] or [StatementShortURL] variable in the text message to insert the clickable link (Billing Defaults). Only statements with modes that match selected Sent text messages to these modes (Billing) will receive a text message, as long as the patient is eligible to receive text messages. Integrated Texting Feature must be enabled.

Process Online Patient Payments

Payments made via the portal or through CareCredit Lookup or CareCredit Apply can be processed in Open Dental manually or automatically.

Automatically:
Enable Mark online payments as processed in Preferences. Payments are automatically allocated using Allocation Settings and marked as processed.

Manually:
When the logged-in user is subscribed to Online Payments Pending Alerts, an alert will notify the user there are online patient payments are pending.

Note:
  • A pending payment is a payment that has not been marked processed in Open Dental. The charge itself is immediately processed with the credit card provider when the patient makes the payment.
  • To mark the alert as read, select Mark As Read. This will reset the Alert () count.
  • Credit cards token information for online payments is safely saved on the Credit Card Manage window.

  1. In the Main Menu click Tools, Online Payments.
    • Alternatively, in the Main Menu, click Alerts. Select the Pending Payment alert, then click Open.
      • Clinic: Select the clinic. Only payments for the selected clinic will show. Users can only view payments for clinics they have access to.
      • Refresh: Enter filter settings, then click to refresh results.
      • Right-click and select Go to Account to open the Account Module.
  2. Double-click a pending payment to open the Payment window.
  3. Review the payment information.
    • Create paysplits if desired. This may already be done depending on Allocations preferences. See Allocations Setup.
    • Check the Mark as Processed box.
  4. Click OK to process the payment.
  5. When all pending payments are processed, click Close.