Superbills for Therapists: What They Are and When to Use One
By Steven Van ·
Oasys Health's guide covers the fields a superbill needs, how it differs from a claim, and which practices need one, with pricing at $80 per clinician.
Oasys Health has published a guide to superbills for therapists, explaining what the document is, what it must contain and which practices need one. A superbill is an itemized receipt that a self-pay or out-of-network client submits to their own insurer for reimbursement. The practice never files a claim.
Superbill, claim and statement
The guide separates three documents that are often confused:
- A claim goes from the practice to a payer, for direct reimbursement to the practice. It requires the practice to be enrolled with that payer.
- A superbill goes from the practice to the client, who files it with their own insurer for reimbursement to themselves. It requires no payer enrolment, only accurate documentation.
- A statement or invoice goes from the practice to the client, showing what is owed or was paid, with no insurance component.
A given session is billed either as a claim or as a superbill, depending on whether the practice is in-network with that client's insurer.
What a superbill must include
- Client name and date of birth.
- Provider name, credentials and NPI.
- Date of each service and its CPT code (90837, 90834 or 90832 for individual therapy; 90853, 90847 or 90846 for group and family sessions).
- The ICD-10 diagnosis code supporting medical necessity.
- The fee charged for each service and what the client has already paid.
- Practice tax ID or NPI, and often a license number, depending on the payer.
The guide says missing fields are the most common reason an insurer rejects a superbill. Other mistakes it lists are missing or incorrect ICD-10 codes, vague CPT coding such as billing every session as 90837 regardless of length, missing NPI or tax ID, and fees that do not match what was charged.
Who needs them
Any practice with self-pay or out-of-network clients who want their own reimbursement needs the capability, even if it is rarely used. A fully in-network practice may never generate one. Private-pay and hybrid practices may hand one out after every session. The guide notes that reimbursement depends on the client's own out-of-network benefits, which the practice does not control and should not promise.
How Oasys handles it
According to the guide, Oasys Health generates the superbill, the claim and the statement from the same signed note. CPT codes, diagnosis codes, provider NPI and fees come from that note, so no separate manual entry is needed. Pricing is $80 per clinician per month on an annual contract, with no separate fee for out-of-network documentation. The full article also lists questions to ask a billing platform, including whether a client can request a superbill for a past date of service without staff reconstructing it.
