After you check on patient insurance eligibility, the Import Eligibility tab continues to display the eligibility data you received from payers when you made the initial eligibility request(s). From the Import Eligibility tab, you can quickly review the eligibility data and either import it into Open Dental or remove it from the list if it is outdated.
To import eligibility information into Open Dental
1. From the Eligibility tab, click Import Eligibility.
The window displays the following information:
· Patient - The patient's name.
· Payer - The payer associated with this patient.
· New - Indicates how many items of new eligibility information are available for you to import for that patient. Question marks (??) in the New column appear when the payer has not yet been determined to be in network or out of network (you can double-click the Goto icon in that row to resolve that). The number of items available for import cannot be determined until it is known if the payer is in network or out of network.
· Elig Date - Shows the start and end dates of eligibility. An asterisk in this box means the eligibility date range recently provided by the payer is different than what's currently in the system (possibly because you're now in a new plan year).
· Date - The date eligibility was last checked.
· Status - Open means the eligibility data is still open for review and hasn't been imported into Open Dental; Closed/Completed means the data has been imported into Open Dental.
2. Do any of the following as you review eligibility data before importing it into Open Dental:
· Use the Order by options (Date/Name/Payer) to specify how you want to sort the data.
· Select the Open or Closed option to filter which type of eligibility records you want to view.
3. Click
the Goto icon 
in that row to open the patient eligibility
information in the Import Eligibility
window.
Note: If this window doesn't open, you may need to minimize the Open Dental window first.
The list shows the following columns:
Benefit - The name of the insurance benefit.
Current - The last (current) eligibility response from the payer that was imported into Open Dental.
Response - The new eligibility response from the payer.
4. Under Import, be sure to select whether the payer is In network or Out of network.
5. Under Import Benefit Coinsurance, specify how you want the coinsurance percentages represented in the eligibility response: Carrier sends patient % (example: 0% / 100%), or the reverse: Carrier sends insurance % (example: 100% / 0%).
6. Make any other changes or take any other actions as needed:
· Click
the 
icon and modify
the insurance plan.
· Type any Plan Notes or Subscriber Notes in the designated note boxes.
· View and print the eligibility summary by clicking View/Print and then Print.
7. Do one of the following:
· Click Save to import the eligibility information into Open Dental. (Any previous eligibility records for the patient will remain in Open Dental.)
· Click Save & Remove to import the eligibility information into Open Dental and remove any previous eligibility records in Open Dental for the patient.
To see the imported eligibility information in Open Dental, click the Family button and look under Insurance Plans.
With the eligibility information imported into Open Dental, you are ready to submit a claim from Open Dental. (On the Open Dental toolbar on the left, click the Account button, and then click New Claim.)