You can bill a third party for any service or product that they are responsible for paying. Typically third parties include lawyers and private insurance companies.
In order to create third-party bills, ensure your CHR account has the default billing provider, named Third Party configured. Go to Settings > Billing, and click the gear icon below Billing Item Template. You can also create your own. Refer to Creating third-party invoice templates.
Depending on your workflow and if a patient has an appointment, you can create a third-party bill from:
An encounter (for providers who want to bill during or after each patient visit). Refer to Creating a third party bill from an encounter note.
The patient’s chart (for staff or providers who want to bill services without a visit or encounter)
The Visits dashboard (for staff or providers who want to bill from a list of appointments)
The Billing dashboard via Quick Bill Entry.
Steps
1. The navigation to open insured billing varies, but the process to create the bill is the same.
From the patient chart
a. Click Start/Open > Insured Billing, and the Insured Payments section opens.
b. At the top-right corner, click +New Payment, and the New Insured Payment window opens.
From the Visits dashboard
a. Select an appointment from the list of today's appointments and a patient information window appears.
b. Click the Insured tab and click Add Insured Payment and the New Insured Payment window opens.
2. Complete or change the bill fields using the below table:
💡 Tip: You can use billing templates to speed up your billing process. For more information, refer to Using billing templates.
Field | Description |
Status | Defaults to your selected default billing item status (Draft or Ready to Submit). If you have any payment tags configured (see Creating payment tags), you can also select one or more from the bottom of the list. |
Location | If you have more than one location, select the location where the patient was seen from the list. |
Payment Issuer | Select Third Party, or if you have additional third-party billing templates configured, select the one you want to use. To create new templates, see Third-party invoice templates. The codes associated with your selected template are now available for you to search. |
Patient/Identification | The patient's information is auto-populated based on the chart you created the bill from. If this is not the correct patient, cancel the bill and open the correct patient's chart. |
Billing Practitioner | Defaults to your name if you are a billing provider. To add a billing provider if you are not one, click No Provider Selected, then click No Provider Selected again in the window that appears. Search and select the billing provider you want to add. |
Facility/Contact | Pull the third party's details into the bill and onto the invoice. Click No Recipient Selected and search by Contact or Facility. If it is a new third party, click the + icon to add a new contact. |
Service Date | If you are logged in as a billing provider and the patient had a recent appointment booked in your schedule, the date defaults to the appointment date. Otherwise, the service date defaults to today's date. Click the date to select a different one from the calendar, or to select a date from a list of the patient's Latest Appointments. |
3. Click + Add Fee Item, or to select a past billed item, click the history icon to look at the historical billing.
The Edit Billing Item window opens.
4. Search and select the Code/Description to pull an item associated with your billing template.
5. If there is anything you need to change, select it and make changes. You can also manually add the details without selecting a Code/Description.
Base Amount
Quantity
Diagnosis Codes
Date of Service/Time
Comments
Tax
📌 Note: You can configure tax names and rates in Settings > Tax. Also, tax is calculated on the full amount before any discounts are applied. To have the tax apply to the net amount, manually adjust the base price to incorporate the discount.
6. To save your changes, click outside the Billing Item window when you are finished adding the service code.
7. To add additional service codes, click +Add Fee Item.
8. To edit a billing item, click it and make the required changes.
9. To delete a billing item, click it and click the trash can icon in the top-right corner.
10. To add internal-only notes associated with the bill, under Internal Notes, click in the empty box and type. These notes are not included in the submitted claim.
8. Next to Status, click to update the bill status to Ready to submit.
💡 Tip: To create an invoice to send to the third party, click the printer icon. See Collecting payment and invoicing third party bills.
9. Click Save.
Updated May 24, 2024