You can set up service codes and products in your account to charge clients for the different services and items you offer in your practice.
In this guide, we'll cover:
Creating and using service codes:
- Adding a new service code
- Creating a new custom service code
- Editing an existing service code
- Assigning service codes to clinicians
- Setting a default service code and custom rate for a client
- Adding service codes when creating a new appointment
- Using add-on codes
Creating and using products:
FAQs:
- How do I bill for a package?
- How do I bill for an initial client balance?
- Can I add a client discount as a service or product?
What are services and products?
Services are billable appointments that you record in the calendar. These are services like "90834 - Psychotherapy 45 minutes", or more general ones like "Art Therapy" and “Supervision.” All services include the option to write a progress note.
Products are non-appointment items that you can add to invoices to charge a client. These can include books, online courses, workshops, returned check fees, or reports, or services that don't need to be on the calendar and don't have any documentation.
Important: Make sure to verify whether passing credit card fees to your clients is legal in your state. See Can I add a credit card processing fee to an invoice? to learn more.
Adding a new service code
Every appointment that you create on the calendar will require a service (CPT) code, regardless of whether or not you bill insurance.
To add a new service code to offer at your practice:
- Navigate to Settings > Billing and Services > Services
- Click Add New Service
- Select the service code
- SimplePractice is already populated with commonly used codes that are billable to insurance. You can type in the numbers to see the list of codes that are available to choose from
- If you select a pre-populated service code, the Description will auto-fill
- If you edit the service code description, the change will reflect on the online appointment requests page for clients, as well as on invoices, statements, and superbills
- The description won’t show on claim forms
- Check Make this the default service if you want this service code to be the default when creating new appointments
- Type a Description, if needed
- Enter the Rate
- You can also bill services in units and add multiple service codes to appointments. To learn more, see Using Unit Billing and multiple service codes
- Choose the Duration
- Select the Booking Options
- If you’re part of a group practice, choose the Clinicians Offering this Service
- Click Save
Once you've added the new services that you'll be offering for your practice, make sure to update your Availability windows from your Calendar to offer the service for online appointment requests. For a detailed walkthrough, see Managing your Availability.
Note: The order that you add your service codes to your account will be the order in which they appear in your online appointment requests.
Creating a new custom service code
If you don't see a code that you'd like to use, or if you provide services not billed to insurance, you can create a new custom service code. To do this:
- Navigate to Settings > Billing and Services > Services
- Click Add New Service
- Enter the custom code in the Service field
- Click Add new code
- Check Make this the default service if you want this service code to be the default when creating new appointments
- Type the Description
- Enter the Rate
- Choose the Duration
- Select the Booking Options
- If you’re part of a group practice, choose the Clinicians Offering this Service
- Click Save
Editing an existing service code
You can edit the description, rate, duration, booking options, the offering clinicians, and the active status of existing service codes.
To edit an existing service code:
- Navigate to Settings > Billing and Services > Services
- Select the service you want to edit
- Make updates to the fields, as needed
- Click Save
If you need to edit the service code itself, you’ll have to delete and recreate the service code. To do so, select the service and click Delete Service. Then you can create a new service using a different code.
If a service code is set as the practice default, you won’t be able to delete it or make it inactive. You can select a different service to be the new default practice service and then go back to delete or change the active status of the original service.
Important: Editing service codes won’t update existing scheduled appointments on the calendar. This means that if you’re trying to update a recurring series of appointments that are already set in the calendar, you’ll have to delete all future occurrences of this series and recreate the series so that the changes to the service code apply. For more information on managing your appointments, see Adding and managing appointments.
After editing an existing service code, be sure to update the Availability windows on your calendar if you'd like to offer the service for online appointment requests. Edits made to the service code won’t carry over to your Availability blocks. To learn how, see Setting Availability.
Assigning service codes to clinicians
If your practice has multiple clinicians, you can assign specific service codes to each of them. To assign a service code to a clinician:
- Navigate to Settings > Billing and Services > Services
- Click the service you’d like to assign to a clinician
- Under Clinicians Offering this Service, click the checkbox to the left of the clinician’s name
- Click Save
Setting a default service code and custom rate for a client
If you're seeing a client on a sliding scale or for a special rate, you can set a default service code and rate that's specific to that client.
To set a default service code or rate for a client:
- Navigate to the client's Overview page
- Click Edit > Billing and Insurance
- Scroll down to Client Default Services
- Select a service code from the dropdown menu
- Enter a custom rate for that service code
- Click Save Client
The new default service code and rate will automatically apply to all new appointments created moving forward. You'll still be able to select a different service code and manually edit the rate when creating a new appointment, if needed.
Note: See Adding modifiers to claims and superbills to learn how you can add a modifier to a client's default service code so it populates claim forms.
Adding service codes when creating a new appointment
When you create a new appointment on the calendar, the default service code that populates will be the code that was set as the practice default in your Services settings, unless the client that you selected has been assigned their own default service code.
You can always change the service code by selecting a different option from the dropdown. You can also change the default rate by editing the amount while you're creating the new appointment.
If you want to add multiple service codes to the same appointment, click + Service.
Note: To learn more about adding multiple service codes to an appointment, see Using Unit Billing and multiple service codes.
Using add-on codes
Frequently used add-on codes are already populated in our platform. Similar to regular service codes, you can add these add-on codes to your settings to use them for appointments.
Important: The add-on codes available in the platform are based on what insurance companies frequently accept. If a code doesn't appear in your Services setting, this means that it likely isn't accepted by insurance companies. If you notice any discrepancies, submit a help request so we can further assist you.
To set up add-on codes in your account:
- Navigate to Settings > Billing and Services > Services
- Click Add New Service
- Enter the + symbol in the Service field and select an add-on code
- Type a Description, if needed
- Enter the Rate
- Choose the Duration
- If you’re part of a group practice, choose the Clinicians Offering this Service
- Click Save
To use add-on codes in appointments:
- Create a new appointment
- Click + Service and select the add-on code
- You’ll only be able to select an add-on code for an appointment as an additional line of service after a regular service code has been selected
- Click Done
Tip: To learn more about extended sessions, see How to Navigate Billing for Extended Sessions.
Adding a product
To charge clients for products or non-appointment items, first add these items to your Products list. To do this:
- Navigate to Settings > Billing and Services > Products
- In the first line, type the Product Name
- Enter the Price
- Click Save
Note: Product names and prices can also be edited when you add them to invoices.
Charging a product with an appointment
You can add a product as a line item to any unpaid invoice. The product fee will reflect in the client's overall balance.
To add a product to an invoice:
- Open the unpaid invoice
- Click More
- Select Edit
Note: If the invoice has already been marked as paid, you can delete it and create a new one to add the product. New invoices can be edited before they're saved. To learn more, see Creating invoices.
- Click + Add Line Item
- Click + Add next to the product you want to add
- You can add as many products as you need
- Make edits to the Description or Amount for the new product line item, as needed
- Click Save
Charging for a product only
To create an invoice for a product only with no appointment:
- Navigate to the client's Billing page
- Click New > Invoice
Note: You'll see a blank list of available appointments if all existing appointments within the date range selected are already invoiced. If all existing appointments aren’t already invoiced, create invoices for these appointments first.
- Click Create Blank Invoice
- Click + Add Line Item
- Click + Add next to each product you want to add to the invoice
- Make edits to the Description or Amount, as needed
- Click Save Changes
How do I bill for a package?
You may offer packages to clients so they can work with you for a set number of appointments, at a discounted rate. If this is the case, you can add your package as a product to charge your client upfront, and then use a custom service code for each of the client's appointments for record-keeping.
- Add a new product for your package
- Add a custom service code
- The rate for this code should be $0
- Make sure to indicate in the description of the code that this is for the package you offer
- If you plan to bill insurance or create superbills and prefer using an existing service code for your client's package appointments, be sure to make an appointment level billing change to set the fee as $0
- Charge your client for the package product only
- Add your client's appointments to the calendar
- Make sure to select the new custom service code you created for your package so your client isn't charged another fee
After the appointments take place, you can enter notes on the client's chart as you would for any appointment. The client's Overview page and your calendar will have a record of the appointments you had with the client under the package.
How do I bill for an initial client balance?
If you're adding a new client who already has a balance, you can add this amount to their account as a billable item. To do this:
- Add a new product for the initial balance
- Create an invoice for a product only
- Add the initial balance as a line item and edit the description or amount, as needed
The initial balance will now be represented by an invoice, which you can pay directly, or at a later time.
Can I add a client discount as a service or product?
You may offer discounts that you want listed on your clients’ invoices or superbills. You can do this for both invoices and superbills by adding the discount as a service and entering a negative rate. For example, if you’re offering a $50.00 discount to your clients, you would enter the rate as -$50.00.
You can also add the discount as a product, but it will only appear on invoices. This is because superbills don’t include products.
Adding your discount as a service on your client’s appointment
- Create a custom service code for your discount
- The rate for this code should be a negative value
- Enter a description for the service code to reflect the discount details
- Select which clinicians in your practice can use this discount code
- Add the discount service to a new or existing appointment
Important: Make sure to uncheck the box next to Available for online appointment requests under Booking Options. This will prevent the service from being added to an Availability block.
By adding the discount to an appointment as a service, the code will be listed on the client’s invoices and superbills.
Invoice
Note: On the invoice, it’ll list the primary service and discount on a single line item. The amount listed will be totaled to reflect the full fee minus the discount, rather than listing them on two separate line items. If the primary service and discount need to be on separate line items, we recommend following the steps in the Superbill section.
Superbill
Adding your discount as a product on your client’s appointment
- Add a new product to your account
- Under Product Name, enter a description of the discount
- The Price should be a negative value
- Add the discount product to a new or existing appointment
Note: Discounts added as a product will not appear on superbills - only invoices.
