How do I check a patient's insurance eligibility on demand in Barti?
Who this is for: Front desk staff and billers at practices with insurance eligibility enabled
Before you start, you'll need:
Insurance eligibility enabled for your organization
A patient with active medical insurance on file
Quick answer
Open the patient's profile and click Check Eligibility next to their insurance. Barti queries the payer immediately and fills in the eligibility result. The button appears only for patients with active medical insurance.
Steps
Open the patient's record and go to their Insurance section. You can also reach this from the patient summary panel on an appointment.
Click Check Eligibility.
Wait while the button reads Checking Eligibility.... Barti queries the payer in real time.
When the check finishes, the eligibility status and coverage details on the patient's medical insurance update with the payer's response.
The check runs against every active medical insurance the patient has, so you do not need to run it once per card.
What you'll see when it works
A confirmation that the eligibility check is complete, and the patient's medical insurance shows the status and coverage details returned by the payer.
Automatic checks before appointments
Alongside on-demand checks, Barti can verify eligibility automatically ahead of scheduled visits. In Settings → Integrations → Claims and Insurance Eligibility, turn on Insurance Eligibility and choose how many days before the appointment the check should run, from 1 to 14 days.
These are two separate controls. Whether your practice has eligibility at all is set up by Barti; the automatic pre-appointment check is the switch you manage yourself. Turning the automatic check off does not remove the ability to run a check on demand.
Medical versus vision coverage
On-demand checks apply to medical insurance only. Payers are not queried for vision coverage, so vision insurance details stay staff-maintained and remain editable in the patient's record.
When automatic eligibility is on, the status and coverage fields on a patient's medical insurance are owned by the payer's response and become read-only — the payer is the authority on what the coverage is. Vision insurance stays editable either way.
Troubleshooting
I don't see the Check Eligibility button.
The button is hidden rather than shown disabled when it cannot run. That happens when eligibility is not enabled for your organization, or when the patient has no active medical insurance on file. Confirm the patient has a medical insurance that is not expired and not disabled. If eligibility is not enabled for your practice, contact Barti support.
The button is missing for a patient who has insurance.
Check the insurance is medical rather than vision, and that it is neither expired nor disabled. Vision-only patients will not see the button.
I can't edit the eligibility status on a patient's medical insurance.
When automatic eligibility is on, the payer's response owns those fields on medical insurance, so they are read-only by design. Run Check Eligibility to refresh them from the payer instead of editing by hand.
The result came back but the coverage looks wrong.
The status and coverage shown are what the payer returned. Verify the patient's member ID, date of birth, and payer selection on the insurance record, correct anything wrong, and run the check again.
An insurance shows "Not Checked" and never updates. Why, and how do I fix it?
"Not Checked" means Barti hasn't recorded a result for that insurance yet — but it doesn't tell you whether a check is still coming or will never run. An insurance with no payer ID on file is skipped by every automatic check, silently, with no error and no distinguishing message. It will stay "Not Checked" indefinitely unless someone corrects it.
To fix it:
Open the patient's record and click the insurance row to open the edit window.
In the Network field, select the correct plan. If it's in your practice's Accepted Insurances list, pick it from the dropdown — Barti fills in the payer ID automatically. If it's not listed, turn on Insurance not listed, search for the payer by name, and select the correct match.
Click Save.
The next automatic check — or an on-demand Check Eligibility — will now be able to run for that insurance.
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