Question:
1. I'm thinking separate categories are needed for medical, dentist,
and vision. Hopefully, this will allow me to evaluate, at year end,
if the benefits received (or probably total expenses) exceed the cost
of the plan. This evaluation is really only be needed for the vision
plan/expenses since the medical and dental plans definitely pay for
themselves.
2. Would you use expN category for the $5-15 (not reimbursed) you pay
to see the family doctor?
3. I'd like to keep track of expenses on an individual basis because
the insurance reimbursements are on an individual basis but don't know
if this is too much work. I guess my choices are multiple accounts,
Classes, and entering the individual's name in the memo field. I
haven't used Classes yet. By the way, all 8 of us go to the dentist
at the same time (we fill their waiting room and take half of their
morning!) so the service date is the same.
4. Why have two categories for 80% and 100%? Is this just a method to
check the insurance reimbursement for the correct percentage?
Answer:
9! Boggles my mind. I have an account for each doctor/patient. When I
get a statement from Doctor Bones for my spouse, I look at the registor
for the account Bones-Spouse to see if I agree with the statement. What
do you plan to do when you receive a statement? If you say "run a
report", then you can't make new entries from the statement. Seems to
me that an account for each doctor/patient would still be easiest, even
given 9 people. I do combine infrequent doctors, so each person might
have a "MedicalMisc" account in addition the other accounts. Vision,
dental, tend to be all done by the same provider.
WIth accounts for each provider, categories are not need as you've
described. You can total medical by totaling the medical providers,
dentist by the dental providers, etc.
The "N" relates to Non-taxable. My categories are structured
exp|ins, N|T, [080|100|var]
the last being insurance percentage.
expT080 is expense, tax deductable, 80%insurance expected
expN is expense, non-deductable, no insurance
When you write "$5 you pay to see the family doctor" it sounds like a
co-pay. If that was a 20% payment of a $25 charge, I'd make two entries
when seeing the doctor and making that co-pay
expT080 $25
[checking] 5
When I see that insurance has been paid to the doctor (either on an EOB
or the doctor's statement) I make another entry
insT080 20
The balance for this service date is now zero, paid in full. When I run
total for exp.080 and ins.080, if these were the only such payments
included, then the total insurance is 80% of the total expense and I
know all insurance payments have been made.
Think I've already answered this. It may be a little more work to enter
in individual acounts, but it's then easiest to process provider's
statements. And it means you won't need additional categories to
distinguish medical from dental from vision.
Right. Easy to run a report
rows: payee
columns: 80% expense categories and 80 insurance categories
If the total insurance isn't 80% of expense then I know there are
outstanding claims and I know which doctors those claims are for. Some
doctors (offices) need prompting.
If all vision services are with a single provider and an account is
created for that provider, then separate Expense and Insurance
Reimbursement categories would not be needed. The Vision account
should contain the information to know if the Vision plan should be
taken the following (next) year. Even if there are multiple accounts,
just the Vision accounts could be selected in a report. So, I think
I've talked myself out of creating separate categories for Medical,
Dental, and Vision services. Opinions are welcome.
With our limited number of trips for medical, dental, and vision
services, creating a Child1 (actual name of child), Child2, etc
Classes seemed to work very well. A report on the dentist service
provider's account subtotaled by Class was very nice.
New Question. If I use Child1, Child2, etc in multiple accounts (and
not just for medical, dental, and vision accounts), then, when using
reports, is there any advantage to having different types of Classes
for each type of account or "function/purpose/expense/income"? For
example, Medical, Dental, and Vision services could use MedChild1,
MedChild1, etc Classes, personal expenses (non-medical related) for
each child (or adult) could use PerChild1, PerChild2, etc Classes, and
separate cell phone bills (which we don't actually have) could use
CellChild1, CellChild2, etc Classes. I'm not really sure what reports
are needed/wanted so I'm struggling knowing how to categorize and
classify things. Comments?
Expense and Insurance categories are useful only if there are insurance
payments and you want to track insurance payments to provider
(necessary,
I think, so that you know provider has been paid and that there is not
an outstanding balance that the provider might bill you).
In my case the vision plan covers only a fixed set of services and we
have additional expenses, and insurance payments, with the eye clinic.
Again, think about data entry. What are your source documents, what
do you have on the screen when looking at the source, when do you key
in new entries? And how do you verify provider's statments (and how
are provider's statements organized)?
Don't combine medical, dental, or vision into the same account and you
won't need to identify such on the transactions.
