The Simple Chutzpah Super Bill
The 10 second insurance billing process for mental health professionals
By Philip Copitch, Ph.D.
CopitchInc.com
Chutzpah Marketing For Mental Health Professionals
The Simple Chutzpah Super Bill
Chutzpah Phone Scripts for Mental Health Professionals
Chutzpah Web Site Marketing for Professionals
Business Consultation with Dr. Copitch
Spiral-bound
28 pages, 11 x 8.8 x 0.3 inches
Show me the Table of Contents
Show me an excerpt
One of the most common questions I get from therapists is: how does the process of billing an insurance company work, what is the secret of the super bill?
Let me quell all the rumors, inflammatory, and false information concerning insurance billing and the mysterious super bill. It is simple, and once you have your ducks in a row, easy.
Philip Copitch, Ph.D.
Book $12.99 
Download $9.99
when purchased with Chutzpah Marketing for Mental Health Professionals
Table of Chutzpah Contents
The simple chutzpah super bill
Building a uniform claim form A laser printer is highly recommended The process counts My 1500 form The 1500 form: patient’s part The insurance address form Making the chutzpah 1500 form. 30 second super bill completion The important parts of the Chutzpah super bill Can I sign as a “Physician?” What is the NPI? Do I need a National Provider Identifier (NPI)? How do I apply for a NPI? Mailing claims Statements In closing Laser printed 1500 claim form (blank) Download Free 1500 Form PDF
top of page
Excerpt:
The simple chutzpah super bill
One of the most common questions I get from therapists is: how does the process of billing an insurance company work, what is the secret of the super bill?
Let me quell all the rumors, inflammatory, and false information concerning insurance billing and the mysterious super bill. It is simple, and once you have your ducks in a row, easy.
Many practitioners spend a lot of time and effort developing a “do everything” piece of paper that allows them to tick off a box for every imaginable procedure, process, or code. This super bill is then given to the patient to turn over to their insurance company. When all is said and done, the insurance companies tend to reject the super bill, leaving the patient frustrated, and often angry with the insurance company and their practitioner.
In the old days, every insurance company had a different process for billing. This made billing very difficult. An individual practitioner, group, or hospital had to deal with 15, 20, maybe even hundreds of different insurance companies, each with their own set of rules for dealing with their specific claim process.
To cope with this confusion, many medical professionals and auxiliary care professionals developed their own super bills. The idea was to make available whatever information an insurance company could possibly want, while streamlining the paperwork process in the office. These forms were often printed on carbonless paper, each layer printed on a different color, so that copies could be sent to the correct place. A friend of mine who owned a local print shop called carbonless paper “printable money” because he was making so much money printing these for every professional. Many of the super bills had the prices printed on them, so if one price changed, all the unused super bills were tossed and replaced with newly printed ones.
Most super bills were printed on a full 8 1/2 by 11 page of carbonless paper covered with hundreds of check boxes followed by procedure codes. For mental health professionals, the super bill was much simpler. Figure 1 shows an example of a super bill I used for years, back in the 1990s. It was 8 1/2 by 5 1/2 so two super bills could be cut out of each standard sheet of 8 1/2 by 11 paper. I never printed my fees on the bill because it was easy enough to keep track of the relatively few procedures I did in my normal work day.
I do not know of any insurance company that will still accept this type of super bill. Over the next few years, the insurance industry and the Obama Administration are moving towards electronic billing. For ebilling to work, the billing forms need to be uniform.
Figure 1. Common super bill 1995 (Reduced)
Building a uniform claim form
Figure 2 shows the form: APPROVED OMB-0938-0999 FORM CMS-1500 (08/05). Usually called the 1500 claim form.[1] This form was developed by the National Uniform Claim Committee:
The NUCC replaced the Uniform Claim Form Task Force, which was co-chaired by the AMA and CMS and resulted in the development of the 1500 Claim Form, a single paper claim form for use by all third-party payers. With the transition of the medical community to electronic data interchange and the proliferation of data element definitions among various payers, it became essential that an organization be established to maintain uniformity and standardization in these areas. The NUCC is responsible for maintaining the integrity of the data sets and physical layout of the hard copy 1500 Claim Form.[2]
Figure 2. Approved OMB-0938-0999 Form CMS-1500 (08/05) (reduced)
There is a whole industry involved with the printing of blank forms. For our purposes you will only need one laser printable form to use. I’ll explain more about this in a moment. First, you need the 1500 claim form. Then, we will reuse it chutzpah style.
A blank form suitable for laser printing can be found at: (This is general info, Medicare based.)
http://www.dhs.state.ia.us/policyanalysis/PolicyManualPages/Manual_Documents/Forms/CMS-1500.pdf
http://www.nucc.org/images/stories/PDF/final_1500_claim_form.pdf
Over the next few pages, I am going to explain how to use this form as a chutzpah super bill. Since this form is used by everyone billing for medical procedures, many areas have multiple usages. If you need comprehensive (medicare) instructions on how to use this form follow these links:Medicare Claims Processing Manual Chapter 26 - Completing and Processing Form CMS-1500 Data Set: http://www.cms.hhs.gov/manuals/downloads/clm104c26.pdf
NEW CMS-1500 (08/05) PAPER CLAIM FORM REVISIONS - http://www.bcbst.com/providers/CMS1500-0805-Newsletter-2-Update.pdf
A website tutorial is available from Medi-Cal: http://pro.medi-cal.ca.gov/wct/eo/cms1500_07/cms1500_07objectives.asp
A laser printer is highly recommended
The streamlined super bill process I will explain, consists of copying and recopying the partially completed 1500 claim form. With each subsequent copy, you will get print deterioration. By starting with a laser printed copy, and using a decent laser copier, this print deterioration will be minimal. If you start with an ink jet copy and make a copy of that, your form will look washed-out and will become more difficult to read.
At the end of this process, we will be asking a worker at a giant insurance company (or insurance processing clearinghouse) to input information from your 1500 claim form into the insurance company’s computer system. The more pristine the form the input worker has to work from, the better the chance of claim payment. Any mistake, even a minor typo, can become a time consuming insurance contact for you.
The initial cost of laser printers has gone down over recent years. While ink jet printers are initially cheaper to buy, their per page cost is substantially higher. Ideally, you want a laser machine that prints from your computer and also makes copies. This will make more sense as I explain the process of using the chutzpah 1500 claim form as your super bill.
A laser printed form is available at the end of this white paper.
The process counts
In the next section I will explain exactly how to fill out the 1500 claim form. But first, let’s go over how we will use the 1500 form. Each fillable cell of the form is labeled with a number. In the insurance industry each cell is referred to as “Item X”, where X is the number of the cell. For example, item 1 is the patient’s name, and item 12 is the patient’s or guardian’s signature.
There are two pages that the patient needs to fill out.
The 1500 form
The insurance address form
End of excerpt
Book $12.99
Download $9.99
when purchased with Chutzpah Marketing for Mental Health Professionals
CopitchInc.com
Chutzpah Marketing For Mental Health Professionals • The Simple Chutzpah Super Bill • Chutzpah Phone Scripts for Mental Health Professionals • Chutzpah Web Site Marketing for Professionals • Business Consultation with Dr. Copitch • CEUforTherapists.com • Site map •