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 need to enter a diagnosis for the client. 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
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. To learn more about creating, editing, and deleting diagnoses and treatment plans, see Diagnoses & treatment plans.
Creating a superbill
Most practices prefer to automate the process of creating and delivering monthly superbills. If you prefer to manually create a superbill, you can do so from the client’s Billing page. To do this:
- Navigate to your client's Billing page
- Select the date range you want to create the superbill for
- Click New > Superbill
- 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. You can then print, download, or email the superbill to your client. 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 appointments in question 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.
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?
- How do I create a superbill for a cash-only client?
- 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 > My Profile > Clinical and update the NPI Number.
The Account Owner can also manage the NPI listed for other clinicians by navigating to Settings > Team Members, clicking the name of the clinician, and updating the NPI # field under Clinician Information.
How do I add a signature to my superbills?
To add a signature to your superbills, follow these steps:
- Navigate to Settings > Documents
- Under Superbills, check the box next to Include Signature Line
- Click Save Documents
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 change the Make payments to field on superbills:
- Navigate to the client's Overview page
- Click Edit > Billing and Insurance
- Select the individual to send superbills to in the For Superbills, send Payment to dropdown
- Click Save Client
If your client is a minor or dependent, make sure to select the appropriate option for Who is the Primary Insured? and enter the Primary Insured'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:
How do I create batch statements/superbills?
Instead of creating a batch statement or superbill, you can use our Exporting transactions 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 billing and automations.
How do I create a superbill for a cash-only client?
If you need to create a Superbill for a self-pay client to submit to their insurance company for reimbursement, first add the client's insurance information. To do this:
- Navigate to the Client Overview Page
- Click Edit Details
- Select the Billing and Insurance tab
- Under Insurance Information, select +Insurance Info
- Indicate if the payment should be sent to you, the client, or the primary insured from the For Superbills, send Payments to dropdown
Can I remove a diagnosis description from a superbill?
When creating a superbill in SimplePractice, the client’s diagnosis and the description of their diagnosis will populate on the superbill.
If you don’t see a diagnosis and you want it to appear on a superbill, you’ll need to make sure the diagnosis is created and dated correctly.
You can remove the description of a client's diagnosis on a superbill by following these steps:
- Navigate to Settings > Documents > Superbills
- Uncheck the box next to Include Diagnosis Description
- Click Save Documents
Changing this setting won't affect superbills you've already created. If you want 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, follow these steps:
- Navigate to the client’s Billing page
- Locate the invoice associated with the appointment
- Determine if the invoice is marked as paid
If the invoice isn't marked as paid, click the invoice to 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 mark invoices as paid.
Why do statements and superbills default to auto-generate 10 days after the 1st?
The default day for superbills and statements to be automatically generated is 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, follow these steps:
- Navigate to Settings > Billing & Services
- Find the Automatic Statement Generation and Automatic Superbill Generation sections
- Use the drop down menus to adjust the calendar dates as needed
- Click Save
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 Billing page
- 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.
