Requesting mental health status checks

Before submitting a claim, it’s important to verify a client’s insurance benefits to confirm that their coverage is active and that their member information is correct. This helps you avoid claim rejections and denials.

You can verify a client’s insurance benefits by requesting an insurance status check from the client’s payer. 

In this guide, we’ll cover:

• Requesting an insurance status check
• Locating insurance status checks
• Receiving insurance status check errors

Note: When verifying benefits through SimplePractice, the information that’s returned is dependent on the payer. If you aren’t able to verify a client’s benefits through SimplePractice, we recommend contacting the payer directly.

Requesting an insurance status check

Once you’ve entered all required insurance information, you can request an insurance status check for a client. To do this:

1. Navigate to your client's profile
2. In the Insurance summary, click Request insurance status check

Note: Insurance status checks not supported in the Insurance summary indicates we don’t have a connection with the payer and are unable to request status checks. We recommend contacting the payer directly to verify the client’s benefits.

After requesting an insurance status check, you’ll be taken to the Insurance status details page, where you can view and print the information, or request a new status check.

Insurance status checks include the following sections:

• Subscriber
• Patient
• Payer
• Mental Health
• Mental Health Provider - Inpatient
• Mental Health Provider - Outpatient
• Mental Health Facility - Inpatient
• Mental Health Facility - Outpatient
• Psychiatric
• Psychotherapy
• Psychiatric - Inpatient
• Psychiatric - Outpatient
• Day Care (Psychiatric)
• Psychiatric Treatment Partial Hospitalization
• Alcoholism Treatment
• Drug Addiction
• Social Work
• Substance Abuse
• Physician Visit - Well
• Physician Visit - Sick
• Prescription Drug
• Adjustment to dentures/repairs to complete dentures
• Bariatric services
• Diagnostic Lab
• Diagnostic X-Ray
• Hospitalization
• Urgent Care
• Hospital - Ambulatory Surgical
• Hospital - Emergency Accident
• Hospital - Emergency Medical
• Hospital - Inpatient
• Hospital - Outpatient
• Professional (Physician) Visit - Home
• Professional (Physician) Visit - Nursing Home
• Professional (Physician) Visit - Outpatient
• Psychiatric - Room and Board

Note: The information that’s included in an insurance status check is dependent on the payer. Because some payers only provide information for a client’s medical coverage, mental health benefits won’t always be included. If coverage information needed to bill your client isn’t included, you can verify their benefits by contacting the payer.

You can adjust the client’s Copay/Coinsurance or Deductible directly from this page in the Client Info section.

Locating insurance status checks

You can access all insurance status checks you’ve requested by navigating to the reports in your account:

1. Navigate to Analytics > Reports > Insurance status checks

You can also locate an individual client’s insurance status checks from their profile:

1. Navigate to the client’s profile
2. Click View insurance status check

In the Insurance status details page, you can view their past status checks using the date dropdown menu.

Receiving insurance status check errors

There are times when an insurance status check can’t be created. You’ll receive an error message when a check fails.

Note: You won’t be charged for failed status checks.

Common error messages and the reasons for each are outlined below.