Overview
You can generate an Insurance Invoice ("superbill") or Service Receipt for a patient at the point of payment (generally preferred workflow), in the course of adding a payment, from inside of the relevant SOAP/encounter note, or from the Billing Block on the patient's chart.
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Details
The insurance invoice (or "superbill") is generally what would be provided to a patient to be able to submit to their insurance for reimbursement, where applicable. It does not list off the payments, but shows the balance owing on the included charges. And, where applicable, includes a Paid in Full stamp. There is an option at the top of the insurance invoice to include all charges, or only charges that are marked as insurance reimbursable - which can reduce the chance that the insurance company will reject the entire reimbursement request.
- Note that the insurance receipt is mean to be generated for one specific date of service/ encounter note. An insurance invoice that includes charges from multiple dates of service is highly unlikely to be eligible for reimbursement from the insurance company. And if charges are added outside of an encounter note, they are not associated with a specific date of service, or with the diagnosis codes (which are required for reimbursement).
- An insurance invoice likewise is patient-specific. If you are applying charge balances from a dependent's account to a payor's account, you will not be able to generate a single insurance invoice for both the payor's and the dependent's charges.
The service receipt is more of a purely patient-facing receipt for amounts charged and paid. It will list off all applicable charges and payments.
- Note that the payment information, if any, that is shown on the service receipt will be the default payment method for the patient. Not necessarily the payment method used for the payment(s) that are included on the receipt. You can remove the payment method section (which includes the signature line) entirely using the Hide Payment Info button at the top of the receipt.
Both the insurance invoice and service receipt can be generated in multiple different ways, as detailed below:
- When adding a payment, for that payment and the charges that it is applied towards.
- From within an encounter note, for any payment(s) and charge(s) that are attached to that encounter note.
- From the patient's expanded billing history, for selected payment(s) and charge(s).
To share an invoice or receipt with the patient on the portal, you can save it. That will default to saving in the Invoices tab of their documents block, and visible to the patient on the patient portal.
When Adding the Payment
If you want to generate an invoice or receipt with all of the charges that are being paid with a specific payment (as well as the payment itself, for the service receipt), you can check the boxes to generate those at the bottom of the Add Payment window itself:
Note that if you have a pop up blocker enabled in your browser, it will block the invoice and/ or receipt. You will want to "Allow all pop ups for this website" when that pop up blocker shows up in the EHR.
If you generally (or always) want to generate the receipt and/ or invoice when adding the payment, you can check the box to "Save selected as my default." This default setting is user-specific, so each user can set a different preference, if desired.
From Inside an Encounter Note
To generate a receipt or invoice for all charges in a specific encounter note (as well as payments, for the service receipt), open that note, hover over the Generate menu, and click on the option to generate the desired invoice and/ or receipt.
This will be the fastest method to use if you have multiple payments that are applied to different charges within the same encounter note, and want to include all of the note's charges on the invoice or receipt.
From the Billing History
To generate a receipt or invoice that includes charges (and payment(s)) spanning multiple dates of service, or that were added outside of an encounter note, you can open the expanded billing history, select the specific charge(s) and payment(s) to include, and use the Manage Checked Charges drop down menu.
Tips for selecting multiple charges/ payments more quickly in the billing history:
- Right click on a payment and choose the option to select all charges that the payment is applied towards.
- Check the box for a specific charge or payment, hold down the shift key on your keyboard, and check the box for a different charge or payment to select both of those and all the charges or payments in between.