Breadcrumb: BCBA › Authorizations

Manage a learner's authorizations

Record the therapy hours a payer approved for a period, follow how much is used, and edit, cancel, reactivate or delete an authorization.

Applies toBCBAOrg Owner

An authorization records the therapy time a payer approved for a learner over a period: for example 120 hours from January to June, funded by an insurer. Once you record it, ABACare counts the learner's sessions against it by itself, shows how much is used and how much is left, and warns you before the hours run out or the period ends. You manage authorizations on the learner's Authorizations tab.

Before you start

You work in the web app. The mobile app has no authorizations screen.
Open Learners, select the learner and open the Authorizations tab. You manage the authorizations of the learners assigned to you; for any other learner the tab shows Could not load authorizations. The rest of the profile is unaffected. Org owners manage every learner.
Server error messages on this tab appear in English.

Read the tab

At the top, Live utilization shows the numbers as they stand now, worked out from the learner's sessions:

The All active authorizations row adds up Authorized, Used, Scheduled and Remaining, plus Unauthorized (last 90 days): time delivered on days no authorization covered.
One card per authorization shows the same figures, the percentage used, the day of the period, the pace compared with the pace needed and, when the hours are on track to run out before the end, the date they will. Tags such as Nearly full, Expiring soon or Projected over-run warn you: see Monitor authorization use across your learners for what each one means.

Submitted and Completed sessions count as used, from their recorded start and end. Scheduled and In Progress sessions from today on count as scheduled. Your org owner can set the clinic to count scheduled times instead of recorded ones.

Below, each active authorization has a row with its funding source, the Active tag, a red Exhausted or amber Expired tag when that applies, the Period, the Notes, and how much is used. Cancelled and completed authorizations are grouped in a collapsed line under the list, such as Cancelled (1).

The Authorizations tab of a learner with the Live utilization totals, an authorization card tagged Nearly full, and the authorization in the list below — An authorization that is nearly used up.

Add an authorization

Select New authorization.
In Authorized time, enter the approved time in hours, such as 120, or hours and minutes, such as 40:30.
Pick the Start date and End date. The end date cannot be before the start date.
Under Funding source, either pick one from Select a funding source (Insurance, Self-pay, School, Government program, Charity) or type your own label, such as the payer's name. Not both.
Add Notes if you want.
If this authorization continues an earlier one, pick it in Renewal of. The list fills once a start date is picked, with the learner's authorizations that start earlier.
Select Create.

The New Authorization window with the authorized time, start and end dates, a custom funding label, notes and a renewal link filled in — Record a new authorization.

The message Authorization created. appears and the numbers update at once, counting the sessions already delivered in the period. ABACare can add a warning without stopping the save:

This authorization's period is entirely in the past.
Another authorization overlaps this period and funding source. In fact it appears only when another authorization of the learner has exactly the same dates and hours.

Edit, cancel or delete an authorization

Edit: select the pencil icon. Edit Authorization has the same fields, and under them a Change history of every change with who made it and when. Select Save changes; the message reads Authorization updated.
Cancel: select the ban icon (Cancel authorization). There is no confirmation. The authorization moves to the collapsed group and stops counting sessions. The message reads Authorization cancelled.
Reactivate: expand the collapsed group and select the circular arrows icon on a cancelled authorization (Reactivate).
Delete: select the bin icon and confirm Delete authorization? with Delete, or keep it with Keep. Deleting removes the authorization and its history for good. Delete only an authorization entered by mistake; cancel one the payer withdrew.

The Edit Authorization window of a cancelled authorization, with its Change history showing the status change — Every change is kept in the history.

About 30 days after an authorization ends, ABACare marks it Completed overnight and freezes its numbers. A completed authorization can still be edited: changing its hours or dates makes it Active again.

Recalculate the numbers

The numbers update by themselves after every change on this tab and whenever a session is submitted or its times are corrected. If they still look wrong, select Recalculate. The message Recalculation queued. Updated numbers will appear shortly. appears and the tab refreshes after a few seconds.

What happens next

When you schedule a session, ABACare warns you if the learner's authorized hours will not cover it: see Schedule a session.
Each night ABACare checks every authorization. When one is nearly or fully used, ends soon, or ended with hours left, you and every org owner get a notification: see Read and act on notifications. Your Needs Attention list also shows authorizations that end soon or are nearly used up, and time delivered without one.
Parents see authorizations only if your org owner turns on Parent Visibility in the clinic's settings. Parents then see the hours used, the hours left and the end date of active authorizations in the parent portal on the web, and get an email when one is ending soon or nearly used up. They see a funding source picked from the list, but never a label you typed, the notes or who made changes.