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Adding Insurance Billing Codes to Services

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Save procedure and diagnosis codes to your Services once, and Practice Better adds them to your session Notes, Claims, and Superbills for you. This article walks you through adding, editing, and deleting insurance billing codes on a Service, and explains where those codes show up.

In this article:

Before You Begin

  • You need at least one Service created. Go to My Practice > My Services to see your Services.
     
  • Saving codes to a Service does not change anything that already exists. Notes, Claims, and Superbills you already created keep their current codes.
     
  • Codes from a Service are added when you create a Note, Claim, or Superbill from a session booked with that Service. See How Service Codes Are Used below.
     
  • Want to save insurance billing codes to your account first? See Adding CPT and ICD Codes to Practice Better →

Adding a Procedure Code

Superbills and Claims require you to define billable units (typically in 15-minute increments) and procedure codes for each service you provide. You can set one or more default procedure codes with billable units for each Service.

  1. Go to My Practice > My Services and click Edit next to an existing Service.
     
  2. Go to the Advanced Options tab and locate the Insurance Billing section.


     
  3. Under the Billing (Procedure) Codes section, click the Add code button to add a default procedure code for this Service.


     
  4. Select one of your saved insurance codes listed under My Codes, or select Add New to enter the details manually.

     
  5. Confirm the details and enter a valid Description, Billable units, and Cost per unit. The Default Unit Charge auto-populates when you select one of your saved insurance codes.

     
  6. Click Done. To add another code, click Add Another.

     
  7. Click Save Changes in the top right.

💡 Tip: Billable units is a number that Practice Better multiplies by the Cost per unit, a dollar amount. Enter the values your insurance billing requires.

Adding a Diagnosis Code

Diagnosis codes saved to a Service are added to the session Notes, Superbills, and Claims you create from sessions booked with that Service. You can set one or more default diagnosis codes for each Service.

  1. Go to My Practice > My Services and click Edit next to an existing Service.
     
  2. Go to the Advanced Options tab and locate the Insurance Billing section.

     
  3. Under the Diagnosis Codes section, click the Add code button to add a default diagnosis code for this Service.

     
  4. Use the search bar to find a code, select one of your saved insurance codes listed under My Codes, or select Add New.

     
  5. If you select Add New, enter all the code details manually. You can optionally select Add to Favorites to save it to your account for future use.

     
  6. Click Done. To add another code, click Add Another.

     
  7. Click Save Changes in the top right.

Editing or Deleting a Code

You can update or remove a code saved to a Service at any time.

  1. Go to My Practice > My Services and click Edit next to the Service.
     
  2. Go to the Advanced Options tab.
     
  3. To edit a code, click Edit next to the code and make your changes. 

     
  4. To delete a code, click the trash icon next to it.

     
  5. Click Save Changes in the top right.

📍 Note: Changes apply to Notes, Claims, and Superbills you create after saving. See Changing Codes on a Service below.

How Service Codes Are Used

Codes saved to a Service are added automatically when you create a Note, Claim, or Superbill from a session booked with that Service. This is true for procedure codes, diagnosis codes, or both.

  • Procedure codes from the Service are added to the Note, Claim, or Superbill.
  • Diagnosis codes from the Service are added to the Note, Claim, or Superbill.
  • Both code types are added together when the Service has both saved.
  • Existing documents are not changed. Saving codes to a Service does not update Notes, Claims, or Superbills you already created.

How Service Codes and Client Record Codes Work Together

Diagnosis codes can also be saved to a client's record, under Medical History.

The two sources work in one direction only:

  • Client record to Note: When you create a note linked to a session, if the Service has no diagnosis codes saved, diagnosis codes from the client's Medical History will populate to the Note instead. 
  • Service to client record: Diagnosis codes from a Service are never added to the client's Medical History. Creating a Note, Claim, or Superbill from a Service does not change the client record.

Which Diagnosis Codes Are Used

When more than one source has diagnosis codes, Practice Better uses them in this order:

  1. Diagnosis codes from the Note for the session.
  2. Diagnosis codes from the Service for the session.
  3. Diagnosis codes from the client's Medical History.

Changing Codes on a Service

When you change the codes on a Service, the update does not change Notes, Claims, or Superbills you already created. Those documents keep the codes they had when you created them.

If a past session does not have a Note yet, you can update the Service codes first and then create the Note. The updated codes from the Service are added to the new Note.

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