Codes and treatment plans · 6 of 6
Presenting the plan
What the patient sees, the small honesty rules behind the numbers, and what goes into the record when they say yes.
The plan is the moment the clinical work becomes a decision somebody has to make. Most of the design here is about not overstating what is known.
A dash is not a zero
When Mesio has no coverage information for a line, the insurance column shows a dash rather than a figure. Insurance pays nothing is a claim about the plan. A dash is an honest statement that the question has not been answered.
Along the same lines, a procedure with no coverage data is totalled at its full fee rather than quietly excluded. No coverage information means self-pay until proven otherwise. It does not mean free.
One uncertain line makes the whole option an estimate
If any line in an option rests on an estimate rather than a known number, the option is marked as an estimate. The alternative would be a total that looks settled because most of its parts were.
What gets recorded when they decide
Two different things are tracked and it is worth keeping them apart.
What you recommended is your clinical judgment. What the patient accepted is their decision, recorded as you attesting to it. Recording the second writes an informed-consent paragraph into the note, so the conversation you actually had is in the record rather than only in memory.
The paragraph carries no dollar figures. It records what was offered and what was chosen. Money belongs on the estimate, which is a document that can be reissued when the numbers change. A clinical note should not need reissuing because a fee moved.
Presenting is not billing
Accepting a plan does not submit anything. Planned procedures can be written into your practice system as treatment-planned entries, each carrying its insurance narrative, and there they wait. You review them and you bill them, from your own system, the way you do now.