Account

A financial tool for tracking value accrued for a particular purpose. In the healthcare field, used to track charges for a patient, cost centers, etc.

Schema

Elements

Name	Required	Type	Description
identifier		Identifier[]	Account number Details Unique identifier used to reference the account. Might or might not be intended for human use (e.g. credit card number).
status	✓	code	active | inactive | entered-in-error | on-hold | unknown Details Indicates whether the account is presently used/usable or not. This element is labeled as a modifier because the status contains the codes inactive and entered-in-error that mark the Account as not currently valid.
type		CodeableConcept	E.g. patient, expense, depreciation Details Categorizes the account for reporting and searching purposes.
name		string	Human-readable label Details Name used for the account when displaying it to humans in reports, etc.
subject		Reference< Patient | Device | Practitioner | PractitionerRole | Location | HealthcareService | Organization >[]	The entity that caused the expenses Details Identifies the entity which incurs the expenses. While the immediate recipients of services or goods might be entities related to the subject, the expenses were ultimately incurred by the subject of the Account. Accounts can be applied to non-patients for tracking other non-patient related activities, such as group services (patients not tracked, and costs charged to another body), or might not be allocated.
servicePeriod		Period	Transaction window Details The date range of services associated with this account. It is possible for transactions to be posted outside the service period, as long as the service was provided within the defined service period.
coverage		AccountCoverage[]	The party(s) that are responsible for covering the payment of this account, and what order should they be applied to the account Details The party(s) that are responsible for covering the payment of this account, and what order should they be applied to the account. Typically. this may be some form of insurance, internal charges, or self-pay. Local or jurisdictional business rules may determine which coverage covers which types of billable items charged to the account, and in which order. Where the order is important, a local/jurisdictional extension may be defined to specify the order for the type of charge.
id		string	Unique id for inter-element referencing Details Unique id for the element within a resource (for internal references). This may be any string value that does not contain spaces.
extension		Extension[]	Additional content defined by implementations Details May be used to represent additional information that is not part of the basic definition of the element. To make the use of extensions safe and manageable, there is a strict set of governance applied to the definition and use of extensions. Though any implementer can define an extension, there is a set of requirements that SHALL be met as part of the definition of the extension. There can be no stigma associated with the use of extensions by any application, project, or standard - regardless of the institution or jurisdiction that uses or defines the extensions. The use of extensions is what allows the FHIR specification to retain a core level of simplicity for everyone.
modifierExtension		Extension[]	Extensions that cannot be ignored even if unrecognized Details May be used to represent additional information that is not part of the basic definition of the element and that modifies the understanding of the element in which it is contained and/or the understanding of the containing element's descendants. Usually modifier elements provide negation or qualification. To make the use of extensions safe and manageable, there is a strict set of governance applied to the definition and use of extensions. Though any implementer can define an extension, there is a set of requirements that SHALL be met as part of the definition of the extension. Applications processing a resource are required to check for modifier extensions. Modifier extensions SHALL NOT change the meaning of any elements on Resource or DomainResource (including cannot change the meaning of modifierExtension itself). There can be no stigma associated with the use of extensions by any application, project, or standard - regardless of the institution or jurisdiction that uses or defines the extensions. The use of extensions is what allows the FHIR specification to retain a core level of simplicity for everyone.
coverage	✓	Reference<Coverage>	The party(s), such as insurances, that may contribute to the payment of this account Details The party(s) that contribute to payment (or part of) of the charges applied to this account (including self-pay). A coverage may only be responsible for specific types of charges, and the sequence of the coverages in the account could be important when processing billing.
priority		positiveInt	The priority of the coverage in the context of this account Details The priority of the coverage in the context of this account. It is common in some jurisdictions for there to be multiple coverages allocated to an account, and a sequence is required to order the settling of the account (often with insurance claiming).
owner		Reference<Organization>	Entity managing the Account Details Indicates the service area, hospital, department, etc. with responsibility for managing the Account.
description		string	Explanation of purpose/use Details Provides additional information about what the account tracks and how it is used.
guarantor		AccountGuarantor[]	The parties ultimately responsible for balancing the Account Details The parties responsible for balancing the account if other payment options fall short.
id		string	Unique id for inter-element referencing Details Unique id for the element within a resource (for internal references). This may be any string value that does not contain spaces.
extension		Extension[]	Additional content defined by implementations Details May be used to represent additional information that is not part of the basic definition of the element. To make the use of extensions safe and manageable, there is a strict set of governance applied to the definition and use of extensions. Though any implementer can define an extension, there is a set of requirements that SHALL be met as part of the definition of the extension. There can be no stigma associated with the use of extensions by any application, project, or standard - regardless of the institution or jurisdiction that uses or defines the extensions. The use of extensions is what allows the FHIR specification to retain a core level of simplicity for everyone.
modifierExtension		Extension[]	Extensions that cannot be ignored even if unrecognized Details May be used to represent additional information that is not part of the basic definition of the element and that modifies the understanding of the element in which it is contained and/or the understanding of the containing element's descendants. Usually modifier elements provide negation or qualification. To make the use of extensions safe and manageable, there is a strict set of governance applied to the definition and use of extensions. Though any implementer can define an extension, there is a set of requirements that SHALL be met as part of the definition of the extension. Applications processing a resource are required to check for modifier extensions. Modifier extensions SHALL NOT change the meaning of any elements on Resource or DomainResource (including cannot change the meaning of modifierExtension itself). There can be no stigma associated with the use of extensions by any application, project, or standard - regardless of the institution or jurisdiction that uses or defines the extensions. The use of extensions is what allows the FHIR specification to retain a core level of simplicity for everyone.
party	✓	Reference< Patient | RelatedPerson | Organization >	Responsible entity Details The entity who is responsible.
onHold		boolean	Credit or other hold applied Details A guarantor may be placed on credit hold or otherwise have their role temporarily suspended.
period		Period	Guarantee account during Details The timeframe during which the guarantor accepts responsibility for the account.
partOf		Reference<Account>	Reference to a parent Account Details Reference to a parent Account.

Search Parameters

Name	Type	Description	Expression
identifier	token	Account number	Account.identifier
name	string	Human-readable label	Account.name
owner	reference	Entity managing the Account	Account.owner
patient	reference	The entity that caused the expenses	Account.subject.where(resolve() is Patient)
period	date	Transaction window	Account.servicePeriod
status	token	active | inactive | entered-in-error | on-hold | unknown	Account.status
subject	reference	The entity that caused the expenses	Account.subject
type	token	E.g. patient, expense, depreciation	Account.type

Inherited Elements

Name	Required	Type	Description
id		string	Logical id of this artifact Details The logical id of the resource, as used in the URL for the resource. Once assigned, this value never changes. The only time that a resource does not have an id is when it is being submitted to the server using a create operation.
meta		Meta	Metadata about the resource Details The metadata about the resource. This is content that is maintained by the infrastructure. Changes to the content might not always be associated with version changes to the resource.
implicitRules		uri	A set of rules under which this content was created Details A reference to a set of rules that were followed when the resource was constructed, and which must be understood when processing the content. Often, this is a reference to an implementation guide that defines the special rules along with other profiles etc. Asserting this rule set restricts the content to be only understood by a limited set of trading partners. This inherently limits the usefulness of the data in the long term. However, the existing health eco-system is highly fractured, and not yet ready to define, collect, and exchange data in a generally computable sense. Wherever possible, implementers and/or specification writers should avoid using this element. Often, when used, the URL is a reference to an implementation guide that defines these special rules as part of it's narrative along with other profiles, value sets, etc.
language		code	Language of the resource content Details The base language in which the resource is written. Language is provided to support indexing and accessibility (typically, services such as text to speech use the language tag). The html language tag in the narrative applies to the narrative. The language tag on the resource may be used to specify the language of other presentations generated from the data in the resource. Not all the content has to be in the base language. The Resource.language should not be assumed to apply to the narrative automatically. If a language is specified, it should it also be specified on the div element in the html (see rules in HTML5 for information about the relationship between xml:lang and the html lang attribute).
text		Narrative	Text summary of the resource, for human interpretation Details A human-readable narrative that contains a summary of the resource and can be used to represent the content of the resource to a human. The narrative need not encode all the structured data, but is required to contain sufficient detail to make it "clinically safe" for a human to just read the narrative. Resource definitions may define what content should be represented in the narrative to ensure clinical safety. Contained resources do not have narrative. Resources that are not contained SHOULD have a narrative. In some cases, a resource may only have text with little or no additional discrete data (as long as all minOccurs=1 elements are satisfied). This may be necessary for data from legacy systems where information is captured as a "text blob" or where text is additionally entered raw or narrated and encoded information is added later.
contained		Resource[]	Contained, inline Resources Details These resources do not have an independent existence apart from the resource that contains them - they cannot be identified independently, and nor can they have their own independent transaction scope. This should never be done when the content can be identified properly, as once identification is lost, it is extremely difficult (and context dependent) to restore it again. Contained resources may have profiles and tags In their meta elements, but SHALL NOT have security labels.
extension		Extension[]	Additional content defined by implementations Details May be used to represent additional information that is not part of the basic definition of the resource. To make the use of extensions safe and manageable, there is a strict set of governance applied to the definition and use of extensions. Though any implementer can define an extension, there is a set of requirements that SHALL be met as part of the definition of the extension. There can be no stigma associated with the use of extensions by any application, project, or standard - regardless of the institution or jurisdiction that uses or defines the extensions. The use of extensions is what allows the FHIR specification to retain a core level of simplicity for everyone.
modifierExtension		Extension[]	Extensions that cannot be ignored Details May be used to represent additional information that is not part of the basic definition of the resource and that modifies the understanding of the element that contains it and/or the understanding of the containing element's descendants. Usually modifier elements provide negation or qualification. To make the use of extensions safe and manageable, there is a strict set of governance applied to the definition and use of extensions. Though any implementer is allowed to define an extension, there is a set of requirements that SHALL be met as part of the definition of the extension. Applications processing a resource are required to check for modifier extensions. Modifier extensions SHALL NOT change the meaning of any elements on Resource or DomainResource (including cannot change the meaning of modifierExtension itself). There can be no stigma associated with the use of extensions by any application, project, or standard - regardless of the institution or jurisdiction that uses or defines the extensions. The use of extensions is what allows the FHIR specification to retain a core level of simplicity for everyone.

Usage

The Account resource acts as a central record against which charges, payments, and adjustments are applied. It contains information about which parties are responsible for payment of the account.

While the Account does conceptually have a balance, expressing that balance directly as a resource property is challenging due to the complexity of pricing contracts. An operation to retrieve the current balance of an account is in consideration as future work.

Relationships

The Account itself does not include information about the charges, payments or adjustments, but rather those resources, such as ChargeItem point to the account to which they apply. Payment and adjustment resources have not yet been developed.

Background and Context

The Account resource can be considered a "bucket" to which ChargeItem resources are linked. These charges are processed by a billing system, which determines the responsible parties for the balance of the account. The billing system then submits claims or sends statements to the appropriate parties. Once payment is received, an adjustment is applied to the Account. The internal calculation of balances and allocation of responsibility is expected to be internal to the billing systems. Only the inputs and outputs of the billing process is communicated in the relevant financial FHIR resources.

Referenced By

• ChargeItem
• Encounter
• EpisodeOfCare
• Invoice