A superbill is an itemized statement your out-of-network patients submit to their own insurance for reimbursement. It is not a claim you send to a payer: you generate the document and the patient files it. FrontDesk builds it from the charges on a patient's chart and produces a PDF you can download or email.
Superbills are made from the patient's Billing tab (also opened full-screen as Charges & superbills). Charges and superbills do not need Stripe; only card payments do.
One-time setup
A superbill pulls identity details from your settings, so fill these in once:
- Provider NPI + license: Settings → Providers → edit each provider. Enter their individual NPI, license number, and optional taxonomy code.
- Tax ID (EIN): Settings → Account → Organization.
- Organization NPI: optional. Enter your group (type-2) NPI if you have one. If you don't, leave it blank. The statement uses the provider's individual NPI automatically.
- Diagnoses: add the patient's ICD-10 diagnoses on the Overview's Diagnoses card (search a code like
F41.1or a word like "anxiety"). Their order sets the pointer letters A, B, C on the statement. See Add diagnoses. - Place of service and numbering: Settings → Billing → Payment methods → Superbills & numbering, per location. In-person place of service (default 11, Office) and Telehealth place of service (default 02; choose 10 for telehealth in the client's home) are put on each visit's charge when it is captured. Next superbill number from carries on from your previous system's numbering (for example 6218); leave it blank for the usual numbering.
To check everything at once, open Payments → ⋯ → Filing info: it shows the practice name and contact, NPI, Tax ID, the location's address and its places of service, flags anything Not set, and links to where each is changed.
Add charges
Each line on a superbill is a charge (date, code, fee, and a diagnosis pointer). Charges get onto the chart two ways:
- Automatically: when an appointment is marked completed, FrontDesk captures a charge priced from the fee on the visit (client rate, provider rate, or practice price).
- Manually: open the Billing tab → Add charge, pick a code (the description and fee autofill), set the diagnosis pointers, and save.
See Charges and the Billing tab for how charges are priced, paid, and voided.
A charge with no fee stays a draft until you set one; drafts are left off the superbill unless you include them.
Generate the superbill
- Open the patient → Billing tab → New ▾ → Superbill.
- Leave the date range on Full history to cover the full treatment span, or set a range to narrow it. The range goes by calendar day: a range of September 1 to September 30 includes every charge dated on the 1st and on the 30th, and nothing from October 1, whatever your time zone.
- Optionally pick a provider to scope the statement to one clinician, tick Include drafts to bring in unpriced charges, and untick any visit you want left off. No-show and late-cancellation fees start unticked, since insurers don't reimburse them; tick one to include it. The footer shows the selected total.
- Click Preview to check it, then Generate & download.
The PDF is headed "Statement for Insurance Reimbursement" and carries your organisation's legal name and the location's address and phone; a To block with the guarantor or patient; the statement number, issue date, and period; the patient's name, date of birth, and contact details; the provider block with NPI, license, and taxonomy; the practice Tax ID; the diagnoses lettered A, B, C; a line-item table with date, place of service, service code, diagnosis pointers, description, units, fee, and paid; Total Fees / Total Paid / Balance; and a footer naming the guarantor or patient as the person to make payments to, with the NPI and Tax ID.
Send it to the patient
From Issued statements, use the download icon to open the PDF or the email icon to send the patient a secure link (from your verified practice sender). Patients with portal access also find every issued superbill under Documents in their portal. Every statement is numbered and kept in the patient's history.
The patient's billing profile records whether they want a superbill monthly or on request and whether to deliver it by email or the portal. With Every month, FrontDesk sends last month's superbill on its own early each month (from 9am on the location's clock, on one of the first five days) when the client had charges that month; On request means you generate it here when they ask.
Good to know
- Full history by default. Unlike tools that only produce monthly totals, FrontDesk defaults to the entire span of care, the cumulative view patients need for reimbursement.
- The patient is the payee. Reimbursement goes to the patient who paid you; the clinic's NPI and Tax ID appear only to identify the provider.
- Multiple providers, no group NPI? If a patient saw more than one clinician and you have no group NPI, generate a superbill per provider (use the provider filter) so each carries the correct individual NPI.
- Issued statements are permanent. Each superbill is a numbered, point-in-time record: regenerating later never changes an already-issued one.
- Missed-visit fees stay off by default. They are listed so you can see them, but only go on a statement when you tick them.