Departments

Run several departments in one practice

A department is a part of your practice with its own schedule, staff and billing business, for example a primary care department and a psychiatry department under one roof. Every patient still has one chart that all departments share.

Who sets them up

Admin → Departments opens for practice administrators, the practice owner, and staff given the permission “Set up departments and who works in each; legal entities also need billing settings access” (in Staff & assistants). It is there whether or not departments are on, because setup comes first. The page has a Turning departments on card at the top and four tabs: Departments, Legal entities, People and Settings by department.

1. Add your legal entities on Legal entities (Legal entities).
2. Add your departments on Departments and pick the legal entity that bills for each (Add and edit departments).
3. Say who works where on People (People and home departments).
4. Clear the red items on the Turning departments on card, then ask Hero support to turn departments on.
5. Give each provider’s schedule its departments and choose which departments offer each visit type (Departments on the schedule).
6. Give departments their own settings where they work differently (Settings by department, Collections & Fees by department).

Add and edit departments

The Departments tab lists each department with its Short name, Legal entity, Default location and how many People work in it. Chips mark the Default department, Inactive ones and Sensitive ones; a department without a legal entity reads Not set. With no departments yet it says “No departments yet. Add the first one; it becomes the default.”

1. Click Add department (or Edit on a row).
2. Fill in Department. Name (required, up to 100 characters, for example Riverside Psychiatry), Short name (up to 30 characters; shown on appointment and claim chips, for example Psych), Specialty, Sort order (lower numbers are listed first) and an optional Description.
3. Fill in Billing and location. Legal entity is the business that bills for this department’s visits. It is required before departments can be turned on, and while they are on. Choosing it needs billing settings access; without it the field reads “Changing who bills needs billing settings access.” Default location is used on claims when a visit has no booked location.
4. Fill in What patients see (optional). Display name, Phone, Text message name (up to 20 characters; used instead of the practice name in text messages that name the practice), Letterhead fax and the letterhead address. Leave a field blank to use your practice’s own name and contact details.
5. Choose the Options. Default department is used when work has no visit to take a department from, such as monthly care-program claims; there is one per practice. Sensitive by default is set aside for confidential visits later.
6. Click Add department or Save department. A problem with a field is shown under that field.

Changing a department’s legal entity

If the department has claims that have not been sent yet, Hero asks first, in a Claims not sent yet window: Keep them on … (the current legal entity) or Move them to … (the new one). After a move, the page says how many moved (“Moved 3 unsent claims to …”) and lists any that stayed, with the reason, for example already sent to the payer or being sent right now.

Deactivating a department

Deactivate asks “Deactivate …? It can’t be chosen for new visits until you reactivate it. Its past visits and claims keep it.” Hero refuses while something still uses the department, and lists everything at once, with up to 25 named examples of each and what to do:

Members don’t block it; they can stay. Reactivate brings an inactive department back.

Legal entities: the business that bills

A legal entity is the business that bills: its tax ID and group NPI go on every claim for the departments that use it. Several departments can share one. The Legal entities tab lists each with its Tax ID (masked, for example EIN •••••6789), Group NPI, Billing address and which departments it Bills for.

Adding or changing a legal entity needs billing settings access as well as department setup. Without it you can still open each one to view it: “You can view legal entities. Adding or changing them needs billing settings access.”

Deactivate asks “Deactivate …? No department can bill under it until you reactivate it.” A department using an inactive legal entity shows it in red with (inactive).

People and home departments

The People tab is a grid: one row per person in the practice, one column per active department. “Tick each department a person works in. Home is the department they start in when they sign in. Changes save as you make them.”

• Works here — tick every department the person works in. Providers are marked Provider; a provider in no department is marked No department in red, and departments can’t be turned on until every active provider is in one.
• Home — the department the person starts in when they sign in. Ticking another department never moves their home.
• Find a person searches by name or email.

A provider can’t be taken out of a department while their own schedule or bookings still name it. Hero lists what still does (“… can’t be removed from … yet. Their schedule and bookings still name it:”) and what to change, then you remove them again.

Turning departments on

Departments are off for every practice until Hero support turns them on; there is no switch for them in Admin → Additional Features. The Turning departments on card at the top of Admin → Departments shows where you stand: “Departments are off. Nobody sees them until they are turned on.” or “Departments are on for your practice.” Under it is a checklist. A red item must be cleared first; a grey one is a suggestion. Each has a link that opens the right tab (Go to Departments, Go to Legal entities, Go to People).

When every item is green the card says “Everything is ready.” and “Ask Hero support to turn this on when every item is green.” Once departments are on, turning them off is also done by Hero support. Turning them off hides departments again; visits, charges and claims that already have a department keep it.

See and change what differs by department

Open Admin → Departments → Settings by department (or Settings on a department’s row). “Every department uses the practice’s settings until you customize one for it. A setting a department doesn’t customize stays linked: it follows the practice when the practice changes it.” The page has three parts: At a glance, Always practice-wide and Edit a department.

At a glance

A table with one row per settings area and one column per department: “Each department uses the practice’s settings unless it has its own. Select one to see or change it.” Areas are grouped (Scheduling & booking, Patient communication, Clinical intake, Billing & collections, Care programs), and Collections & Fees is listed section by section. Each cell reads Practice (the department uses the practice setting) or Customized with how many settings it has its own value for.

• Click a cell to open that department’s card in Edit a department below. A Collections & Fees cell opens Billing → Collections & Fees for that department instead (see Collections & Fees by department). Without billing settings access those cells can’t be opened: “Changing Collections & Fees needs billing settings access.”
• Visit types offered and Care-program timer suppression read Varies by department and say where they are set.
• Inactive departments are marked Inactive. On a phone, pick one department and its areas are shown as a list.

Always practice-wide

Always practice-wide lists what can’t differ by department: “These apply to every department, so they are set once for the whole practice.” Each item says why and links to where it is set.

Edit a department

“Customize a setting for one department, or hand it back to the practice.” Pick the Department. Each setting shows the value in force and a chip: Uses the practice setting, or the department’s own (for example Psychiatry’s own setting).

1. Click Customize for … on the setting (for example Customize for Psychiatry). It starts from the value in force.
2. Change the value and click Save for …. Settings that belong together (online booking hours and their mode, booking dates and theirs) are saved and reset together: “These settings are saved and reset together.” The practice’s value stays visible underneath (Practice: …). Edit changes a setting the department already has its own value for.
3. To go back to the practice, click Use the practice setting on the setting, or Use the practice settings for all on the card. Hero asks first, for example “Use the practice setting for “Minimum notice”?”

Message routing and Intake questionnaires apply “while the practice manages this. When the practice lets each provider decide, providers’ own settings are used instead.” If someone else changed the same setting while you had the page open, Hero doesn’t overwrite it: “Someone else changed this setting. Reload to see their change.”

Practice pages say when a department differs

With departments on, the practice-level page for each of these settings names the departments that have their own value there, for example “Psychiatry has its own “Appointment reminder schedule” setting. Everything else here applies to every department, including Psychiatry’s.”, with a Department settings link. You see it on Patient Notifications and Paperwork Reminders (Admin → Scheduling), Practice visit types, the patient messages settings in Admin → Messaging, Admin → Questionnaires, Practice Info, and in Billing on Collections & Fees and the Service Menu. A change you make on the practice page reaches every department, except the settings a department has its own value for.

Give a department its own collection rules

Departments can collect differently, for example the primary care copay in primary care and the specialist copay in the specialty departments, or a deposit to book in only one department. You set this in Billing → Collections & Fees, on the same page the practice uses (see Collections & Fees). Changing it needs billing settings access; department setup access alone is not enough.

The Settings for bar

When the practice has departments, the top of Collections & Fees shows Settings for with Whole practice and each department; inactive departments come last. A dot marks a department that Has its own settings here.

• Whole practice is the page as before: “These settings apply to every department, except the sections a department has its own setting for.” A note names them, for example “Psychiatry has its own “Collect before the visit” and “Cancellation & no-show fees” settings. Everything else here applies to every department, including Psychiatry’s.”, and each of those sections carries a chip such as Psychiatry has its own.
• A department shows the same page with the values that department’s visits use, titled for example Psychiatry · Collections & Fees: “Sections marked “Uses the practice setting” follow the practice automatically.”

The page address keeps the department you picked, so a link can open one department’s settings directly; the Collections & Fees cells in Settings by department open it that way.

Customize a section for a department

1. Pick the department in Settings for.
2. Click Customize for … on the section (for example Customize for Primary Care). Until you do, the section reads Uses the practice setting and its fields can’t be changed. It starts from the practice’s values.
3. Change what differs. The section now reads, for example, Primary Care’s own setting, with the practice’s value underneath (Practice setting: …).
4. Click Save for … in the save bar. It then reads, for example, “All changes saved · Primary Care has its own settings for 1 section”.

Example: the specialist copay in specialty departments

Most practices set the copay the majority of their visits use for the Whole practice and customize the exceptions. For a practice whose specialty departments collect the specialist copay and whose primary care department collects the primary care copay:

1. Set the whole practice. In Billing → Collections & Fees with Settings for on Whole practice, set When a plan lists different office copays, collect to Specialist (The specialist office copay, when the plan lists one) and click Save changes.
2. Pick the exception. Choose Primary Care in Settings for. The Office copay tier section reads Uses the practice setting.
3. Customize it. Click Customize for Primary Care on that section, set it to Primary care (The primary care (PCP) office copay) and click Save for Primary Care.

The specialty departments keep following the practice’s specialist copay, and Settings by department now shows Customized for Primary Care’s office copay tier. A plan that lists only one office copay uses that one in every department.

To hand a section back to the practice, click Use the practice setting on it and save. Hero asks first: “Use the practice setting for “Office copay tier” in Primary Care? Primary Care’s own values for it are cleared when you save, and from then on it follows the practice.” Picking another department or Whole practice with unsaved changes asks too. A problem is shown on the section it belongs to. If someone else saved the same department meanwhile, nothing is overwritten: “Someone else changed this department’s settings. Reload to see their change.”

What a department can have its own setting for

Everything else on the page is practice-wide and locked in a department’s view: Practice-wide: applies to every department, with the reason and Edit for the whole practice, which switches the bar to Whole practice. That covers statements and payment reminders, payment plans, refunds, outstanding balance and scheduling, automatic no-shows, insurance eligibility checks, front desk tools, insurance routing and claims defaults, and the payment model (see Always practice-wide). What patients see stays visible as a preview of that department’s terms.

Which visits follow which settings

• A visit follows the department it is booked in, whoever books it: staff, the patient portal, your website or the phone agent. The price and deposit a patient is quoted are that department’s, and its encounter, charges and claim follow the same department. The working department of the person looking at the page never changes it.
• Most specific wins: the practice, then the department’s own sections, then billing-type rules, then the Service Menu’s per-service settings, then a patient’s Custom Billing Rules.
• When it takes effect: “Changes apply the same way practice changes do: booked cancellation terms stay, and unpaid amounts not yet collected follow the new setting.” Changing a department’s collection or office copay tier also updates unpaid copays on its upcoming visits; paid copays never change.
• Visits without a department (booked before departments were turned on) follow the whole practice. While departments are off, new visits aren’t assigned to a department and use the practice settings; visits already assigned to a department keep using its settings.
• Switching the payment model clears every department’s Collections & Fees settings. The switch preview says so first: “Switching clears 2 department customizations of Collections & Fees. Those departments use the practice settings afterward; you can customize them again.”
• A practice change can’t break a department. If saving the whole practice would leave a department’s settings invalid, Hero refuses and names it, for example Psychiatry · Saved card & autobilling: …. Change or hand back that department’s section first.

Your working department

With departments on, the top bar shows a department switcher (a building icon and the department’s short name) for anyone who has a department to pick, when the practice has two or more. Its menu, Working department, lists All departments and the departments you work in, with your home department marked Home. Practice administrators, department managers and billing staff can pick any active department.

“Filters your calendar and lists, and fills in new work. It never limits what you can open.”

• Where it filters. The calendar’s Day view, month counts and Team view (only that department’s providers get a column), the inbox’s message pools (that department’s pools and the practice-wide ones), and billing reports. A filtered screen says so, for example Showing Riverside Psychiatry only, with an All departments link back to everything.
• What it fills in. A new booking starts on your working department when the provider works there and the chosen time isn’t another department’s hours; an opening added with Open Schedule… starts on it too. You can change it before saving. A reschedule is never pre-filled: the new time decides.
• Where it is kept. Your choice is saved to your account, so it follows you to other devices; a browser tab where you switch keeps its own choice, so two tabs can work in two departments at once. With no choice you start in your home department.

Departments on the schedule

Give each working window its department

In Admin → Scheduling → Weekly Schedule, each working window shows the department it serves, chosen from the provider’s departments (or No department). A new window starts on the provider’s home department and must have one: “Choose the department this window serves.”

• Split this day splits a working day in two, for example 9 to 1 in one department and 1 to 5 in another: “9:00 AM–5:00 PM will end at 1:00 PM; this window takes the rest of the day.” Add another window adds a window, and Remove window takes one away.
• Specific dates. In Change schedule, each window has a department choice; Keep the schedule’s department leaves it as the weekly schedule has it, and the preview names each window’s department. Open Schedule… openings also carry a department, which decides the department of visits booked into them.

Choose which departments offer each visit type

In Practice visit types, a visit type’s Offered by list says which departments offer it: “Every department offers it. Tick departments to offer it only there.” When only one department offers it, visits booked with it belong to that department, and staff are offered it only inside that department’s hours.

How a visit gets its department

Hero stamps a department on every visit when it is booked, and the visit’s encounter carries the same one. In order, the first that applies decides:

1. The schedule. The provider’s working window at that time, if it names one department.
2. Your choice in the booking window’s Department field. It must be one of the provider’s departments and must fit the window.
3. The visit type, when only one of the provider’s departments offers it.
4. The provider’s home department, then their only department.

If none of these decides, staff are asked to choose (“The schedule doesn’t decide this visit’s department. Choose one.”, pre-filled with your working department when the provider works there). Patients booking online can’t fix that, so they are asked to call instead (see What patients see).

The Department field when booking

With departments on, the booking window has a Department field. It starts on your working department as described above (“Your working department. Change it, or leave it to the schedule.”); otherwise it is left to the schedule (Set by the provider’s schedule). Its line underneath says what will happen, for example “This time is Psychiatry hours, so the visit books in Psychiatry.” A choice that doesn’t fit the time is flagged before you book: “This time is Psychiatry hours, so Primary Care doesn’t fit it. Choose Psychiatry or another time.” When rescheduling, it says whether the visit stays in its department or moves with the new time. A provider in no department reads “This provider isn’t in a department yet. Add them to one in Admin → Departments.”

Booking a treatment series in a department says “Every session books in …. Sessions outside its hours can’t be booked and are marked below.” A reschedule, reassignment or Shuffle move into another department’s hours moves the visit with it and says so, for example “This visit moved from Primary Care to Psychiatry.”

Seeing and changing a visit’s department

• On the calendar a chip with the department’s short name sits beside the visit type in Day view and on visit cards in the Team and Week views; hover it for the full name and the business that bills it. The schedule export adds a Department column, and a filtered export says which department it covers.
• In the visit (the edit window) and in the note’s toolbar, Change department (or Set department) opens Change the visit’s department or Change the encounter’s department. The visit’s encounter, appointment, unsent claims and charges move together, and the new department must fit the provider’s schedule at that time. In the note, physicians, administrators and staff who can edit drafts or manage charges can change it.
• After the claim is sent the department can’t be changed: “The department can’t be changed after the claim was sent. Use Correct & Refile instead.” (see Correct & Refile).

What patients see, and where messages go

• Booking online. When a time in the portal can be booked under more than one department, the patient is asked “Which kind of visit is this?” (“This time is open for more than one kind of visit. Pick the one you need.”) and picks one by the department’s display name before confirming. A time Hero can’t place in a department can’t be booked online: “This visit can’t be booked online. Please call the office at … and we’ll find a time with you.” Website booking and the phone agent turn such a time down the same way and ask the patient to call the office.
• Reminders and visit messages use the visit’s department name, phone and text message name, and its own reminder settings if it has them. A visit that moved to another department says so (“It’s now with ….”).
• Patient messages. A department can have its own Who can message the providers rule and Where new patient messages go (in Department settings). In Admin → Messaging, a message pool can belong to one department (Department, or Practice-wide (every department)): “A department’s pool is its own queue, such as Psych referrals. Staff working in that department see it first; anyone can still send to it.”
• Billing. Each visit’s claim goes out under its department’s legal entity. Billing screens show the department and legal entity, and reports and remittances can be filtered by them.
• What patients pay. The copay, deposit, saved-card rule and cancellation and no-show fees a patient sees when booking are the visit’s department’s (see Collections & Fees by department). A patient who changes the kind of visit or the time can be shown different terms; if the amount changes after they saw it, they are asked to review the updated terms before the booking goes through.