Recording payments from external billing platforms

Many of our customers use external billing platforms, such as Alma, Headway, or Lyra, to collect insurance and client payments. These payments can be manually recorded in your SimplePractice account. This allows you to take advantage of our Analytics features, including billing reports and income reports. 

Note: Access to these reports is based on a team member’s access level. For more information, see Clinician roles available for team members and Administrative roles available for team members.  

You can record all income received from an external billing platform as insurance income by adding insurance payments. Alternatively, you can separate client income from insurance income by adding insurance and client payments. 

To enter payments from an external billing platform, add them as an insurance payer in your account. To do this: 

1. Navigate to Settings > Client billing and insurance > Payers
2. Click Add payer manually

3. Enter the name of the billing platform under Payer name 
4. Select Other as the Coverage Type 
5. Click Save 

The payer can now be assigned to clients so insurance payments can be added. To do this: 

1. Navigate to the client’s Overview page 
2. Click Edit > Billing and Insurance
3. Set their Billing Type to Insurance
4. Scroll to Insurance info  
5. Click + Insurance info

6. Use the Payer dropdown to select the payer

7. Click Save 

If you’d like to separate client income from insurance income, enter the client’s Copay/Coinsurance in their insurance information as well. If you’d rather record all income as insurance income, set the client’s Copay/Coinsurance to $0. 

To add all income as insurance income when you’re adding an insurance payment:

1. Enter the total payment amount in the Amount field 
2. Enter the total amount paid for each appointment in the Insurance Paid column

3. Confirm that the Client Owes amount for each appointment is $0 
4. Click the wheel icon in the Write-Off column to automatically populate the insurance write-off
5. Click Save Payment

To differentiate client income from insurance income when you’re adding an insurance payment:

1. Enter the total insurance income portion in the Amount field
2. Enter the amount paid by insurance for each appointment in the Insurance Paid column
3. Confirm the client responsibility for each appointment in the Client Owes column

4. Click the wheel icon in the Write-Off column to automatically populate the insurance write-off
5. Click Save Payment 
6. Add a client payment for each client responsibility using the Check payment type
   • You can use the Check Number field to indicate that the payment came from the external billing platform 

Note: Appointments with Insurance as their Billing Type will appear on your Unbilled appointments page until a claim is created. You can remove these appointments by creating and downloading a claim, rather than submitting it. Once an insurance payment is added, the claim will update to Paid. For instructions on this, see Removing appointments from the Unbilled appointments list.