In Family File, you can combine families and separate families only if no current transactions are associated with those families' accounts.
Note: Combining families or separating a family requires the "Patients, Edit Family Relations" security right.
Familiarize yourself with the following terms that are associated with the editing of family relations:
Current Transactions - Transactions that have been posted to a family's account and have not been put into history. An insurance claim is considered current until an insurance payment for that claim is received, and that claim and its payment have been put into history. Current transactions can include procedures, adjustments, guarantor payments, insurance claims, and insurance payments.
Insurance Subscriber - The patients in a family who are subscribers to an insurance policy for themselves or other members of the family.
Patient Transactions - Transactions that have been posted to Ledger that are directly connected to the patient. Patient transactions can include procedures, payments, adjustments, insurance claims, and insurance payments.
Guarantor Transactions - Transactions that have been posted to Ledger but are associated with the account rather than with an individual patient. Guarantor transactions can include guarantor payments, finance charges, late charges, adjustments, and balance forwards.
Balance Forward - The amount of money that is still owed from the prior closed-out month.
Special Adjustment - To reconcile account balances when you move family members, Dentrix Enterprise creates offsetting adjustments that are called Special Adjustments. Each special adjustment is recorded with the current date and a note of explanation and is put into history automatically.
To combine families or separate a family
With a patient selected in Family File, on the Edit menu, click Family Relations.
If applicable, do one of the following:
If the Password - Patients, Edit Family Relations dialog box appears, user verification has been assigned to the "Patients, Edit Family Relations" task. Do one of the following:
If your user account has been granted the "Patients, Edit Family Relations" security right, enter your credentials in the User ID and Password boxes, and then click OK.
If your user account has not been granted the "Patients, Edit Family Relations" security right, have a user with permission temporarily override this restriction so you can edit family relations this one time. The overriding user enters his or her credentials in the User ID and Password boxes and then clicks OK.
If a message appears, informing you that you do not have rights to this operation, your user account has not been granted the "Patients, Edit Family Relations" security right. To have a user with permission temporarily override this restriction so you can edit family relations this one time, do the following:
On the message, click Yes.
In the Password - Patients, Edit Family Relations dialog box, the overriding user enters his or her credentials in the User ID and Password boxes and then clicks OK.
The Edit Family dialog box appears, and the head of household and other family members appear in the Family 1 list.
Click Family 2.
The Select Patient dialog box appears.
Do one of the following:
To select an existing family other than the current family, do the following:
In the Enter Last Name box, enter the last name of a family.
Note: For information about all the search options that are available in the Select Patient dialog box, refer to the topic about selecting a patient.
In the list of results, select any member of the correct family.
Click OK.
To create a new family (for instance, when a dependant gets married or moves away and is no longer a dependant), click New Patient/Family.
A Family 2 list appears in the Edit Family dialog box.
Do any of the following as needed:
If you are creating a new family, do the following:
To move a family member from the family
1 to family 2 with that patient as the head of household, select the correct
patient in the Family 1 list,
and then click the Move to Right
button 
.
For
each family member that you want to move from family 1 to family 2 with
that patient as a family member, select the correct patient in the Family 1 list, and then click the
Move to Right button .
If you are moving patients between two existing families, do any of the following as needed to put patients in the correct families:
To move
a family member from family 1 to family 2 with that patient as a family
member, select the correct patient in the Family
1 list, and then click the Move
to Right button .
To move
a family member from family 2 to family 1 with that patient as a family
member, select the correct patient in the Family
2 list, and then click the Move
to Left button 
.
Notes:
You cannot move heads of households between existing families.
To move a patient who is the only patient in a family to another family, you must add a temporary, fake patient as a non-patient to the same family as the real patient belongs to, make that fake patient the head of household, and then move the real patient to the other family.
If you are moving a patient to an existing family as a family member, but want that patient to be the head of household, you can change the head of household later.
Click OK.
The Dentrix Family File dialog box appears.
When a patient is moved to another family, all the patient's procedures, applied payments, applied adjustments, insurance claims, and insurance payments are transferred along with the patient's information. But, you can choose whether to keep the family balances the same as they were before the patient was moved or to move the patient balances with the patients. Select one of the following options:
Keep each Family Balance as it was before Family Edit - Dentrix Enterprise posts offsetting special adjustments to keep the balances as they were before the patient was moved. Dentrix Enterprise moves all the transactions (credits and charges) that pertain specifically to that patient to the new family.
Transfer Patient Balances, updating each Family Balance accordingly - Dentrix Enterprise moves all the transactions (credits and charges) that pertain specifically to that patient to the new family. Dentrix Enterprise posts special adjustments only if a credit does not pertain to a specific patient (it pertains to the family or to different patients who are now in separate families). The special adjustments will adjust the balances so that any remaining balance for the patient will be moved to the new family. Dentrix Enterprise adds notes to any applicable credits to explain that part of the credits pertained to a patient who was moved to another family.
Click OK.