A superbill, also known as a Statement for Insurance Reimbursement, is a document that clinicians can give to their clients to be reimbursed by insurance payers. This document is similar to a statement, but it provides additional information, such as CPT codes and primary diagnosis codes.
Note: To learn more about the different types of client billing documents offered in SimplePractice, see Understanding invoices, statements, and superbills.
In this guide, we’ll cover:
Entering a diagnosis
Before you can create a superbill, you’ll want to enter a diagnosis for the client to make sure that the insurance payer has all of the necessary information for reimbursement. To do this:
- Navigate to the client's Overview page
- Click New > Diagnosis and treatment plan
- Select a diagnosis
- Click Load last plan if you'd like to use a previous diagnosis
- Click the + icon if you'd like to add multiple diagnoses
- Edit the date and time as necessary
- Click Save
When a diagnosis is added for a client, it’ll apply to all appointments moving forward until another diagnosis and treatment plan is created with updated information.
If a diagnosis isn’t appearing on a superbill, you’ll need to make sure the diagnosis was dated before each applicable appointment.
If there’s an existing superbill, the associated appointment(s) will be locked. You can delete the superbill to then edit the date and time of diagnosis. For more information, see Editing, printing, or deleting a diagnosis and treatment plan.
Note: After saving the diagnosis, you have the option to enter a treatment plan. If you’d prefer not to create a treatment plan, you can skip this step by clicking Skip to treatment plan. To learn more about creating, editing, and deleting diagnoses and treatment plans, see Diagnoses and treatment plans.
Creating a superbill
Many practices prefer to automate the process of creating and delivering monthly superbills. If you prefer to manually create a superbill:
- Navigate to your client's Overview > Billing tab
- Select the date range you want to create the superbill for
- Click New > Superbill
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Check the box next to each date of service you want included on the superbill
- Click Create Superbill
A new superbill will be created with all of the relevant client and practice information that the insurance payer needs to provide reimbursement. You can print, download, or email the superbill to your client so they can submit it to the insurance payer directly. To learn more, see How to share billing documents with clients.
Once a superbill is created, you have the option to print, download as a PDF, email, or delete the superbill. These features can be accessed via the corresponding buttons at the top of the superbill:
Note: If you need to make updates to the appointment(s) on a superbill, you must first delete the superbill by clicking the trash can icon. After deleting the superbill, update the related appointments and create a new superbill. If you want to make edits to an appointment, but also retain the existing superbill, you can download it as a PDF and store it on the client's Overview page before deleting it.
Deleting a superbill
Creating a superbill will lock the associated appointment(s), and no further changes can be made. If you’d like to update information on the superbill, you can delete the superbill, make your desired changes, and create a new superbill. To do this:
- Navigate to the client’s Overview > Billing tab
- Locate the appointment which the superbill is attached to
- Click on the superbill
- Select the trash icon to delete the superbill
After deleting the superbill, you can make appointment level billing changes or update the necessary information. To recreate the superbill with the updated information, click New > Superbill from the client’s Billing page.
FAQs
- How can I update the NPI that's listed on a superbill?
- How do I add a signature to my superbills?
- How can I change "Make Payments to" on a superbill?
- How do I create batch statements/superbills?
- Can I remove a diagnosis description from a superbill?
- Why aren't my superbills showing as paid?
- Why do statements and superbills default to auto-generate 10 days after the 1st?
- Why aren’t certain appointments showing up when I create a superbill?
How can I update the NPI that's listed on a superbill?
The Individual or Type 1 NPI belonging to the rendering provider for a specific date of service will populate in the Provider information section of a superbill.
Note: If a superbill includes multiple appointments held by different clinicians, the Individual NPI of the client's primary clinician will populate in the Provider information section of the associated superbill.
If the Individual NPI is missing or incorrect for a clinician, you can navigate to Settings > Profile > Clinical info and update the NPI Number.
The Account Owner can also manage the NPI listed for other clinicians by navigating to Settings > Team > Team members, clicking the name of the clinician, and updating the NPI number under Clinical info.
How do I add a signature to my superbills?
To add a signature to your superbills:
- Navigate to Settings > Client billing and insurance > Client billing documents
- Under Superbills, check the box next to Include signature line
- Click Save changes
You’ll now see a signature line appear on all superbills:
Note: Changing this setting will populate the signature line onto all superbills that you create moving forward. If you've already created a superbill that you’d like to add a signature line to, you’ll need to delete and recreate the superbill.
How can I change "Make Payments to" on a superbill?
Superbills can be customized so that the provider, practice, client, or the primary insured individual can be reimbursed from the insurance payer. To do this, you can change the Make Payments to field on superbills:
- Navigate to the client's Overview page
- Click Edit > Billing and Insurance
- If the client doesn’t have insurance information added yet, select + Insurance info
- If the client already has insurance information added, click Edit next to the insurance payer
- Select the individual to send superbills to in the For superbills, send payment to dropdown
- Click Save
If your client is a minor or dependent, make sure to select the appropriate option for the Primary policy holder and enter the policy holder's information.
The selection you make from the For superbills, send payment to dropdown will appear at the bottom of the superbill in the Make Payments to field.
Note: Changing this setting will populate the selected party onto all superbills that you create moving forward. If you've already created a superbill that requires an update to the Make Payments to field, you’ll need to delete and recreate the superbill.
How do I create batch statements/superbills?
Instead of creating a batch statement or superbill, you can use our Export payments feature.
Since you're able to automate statements and superbills in your SimplePractice account, you may not have a need to create these documents in batches. You can elect to have these documents created at regular monthly intervals, and delivered automatically to your clients.
To learn how to set up your billing automations, see Setting up your billing and automations.
Can I remove a diagnosis description from a superbill?
When you create a superbill in SimplePractice, the client’s diagnosis and its description will populate on the superbill.
Note: If you don’t see a diagnosis and you want it to appear on a superbill, you’ll need to make sure the diagnosis was created and dated before the superbill's first appointment. To edit the date and time of a diagnosis, see Editing, printing, or deleting a diagnosis and treatment plan.
You can remove the description of a client's diagnosis on a superbill as needed. To do this:
- Navigate to Settings > Client billing and insurance > Client billing documents
- Under Superbills, uncheck the box next to Include diagnosis description
- Click Save changes
Note: Changing this setting won't affect superbills you've already created. If you’d like these changes to apply to your existing superbills, you'll need to delete and recreate them after updating these settings.
Why aren't my superbills showing as paid?
Superbills will reflect that appointments have been paid if the invoices associated with those appointments have been covered in full, and marked as paid.
If a client payment has been added to their file and the appointment shows as unpaid on the superbill, check whether the appointment has a green Paid stamp next to the client responsibility. This would indicate that the client's invoice(s) are fully paid.
To check this:
- Navigate to the client’s Overview > Billing tab
- Locate the appointment and view the status next to the client's responsibility
If the invoice(s) aren't marked as paid, you can add a client payment. To learn more about adding a payment to an invoice, see Adding a client payment.
If the invoice was marked as paid after the superbill was created, you’ll need to delete the superbill and recreate it for the new information to populate correctly.
Note: Invoices will only be marked paid when they're paid in full. Partial payments won't reflect on superbills.
Why do statements and superbills default to auto-generate 10 days after the 1st?
By default, superbills and statements are set up to be automatically generated on the 10th of each month. We chose this as the default day of the month because it provides enough time for any client payments to be added from the previous month, as well as for the corresponding invoices to be marked as paid. This provides a buffer of time so that you won’t have to delete and recreate any documents if changes have occurred.
If you’d like to change the date that these documents are auto-generated, you can do this in your practice settings:
- Navigate to Settings > Client billing and insurance > Client billing documents
- Locate the Automatic statement generation and Automatic superbill generation sections
- Use the dropdown menus to adjust the dates as needed
- Click Save changes
Why aren’t certain appointments showing up when I create a superbill?
An appointment can only be listed on one superbill at a time. If you’re creating a superbill for a specific date range and all appointments are already on a superbill, you’ll receive a message stating: "The date range you selected does not include any appointments. Select a different date range to continue."
To check if a superbill already exists for the date of service:
- Navigate to your client’s Overview > Billing tab
- Locate the appointment(s) in question
- Confirm if there’s a superbill attached to that date of service
If you’d like to create an updated superbill for the appointment(s) in question, you’ll need to delete the existing superbill and recreate it once the changes are made.