Client Billing Type
IN THIS ARTICLE
How to Set a Client Billing Type in Healthie
When you have a mix of insurance and self-pay clients, managing billing at the appointment level can create unnecessary friction — especially when a client's situation doesn't match your default Appointment Type settings. Healthie's Client Billing Type feature solves this by letting you set a persistent billing designation directly on a client's profile, so the right workflow kicks in automatically every time an appointment is marked as occurred.
What Is Client Billing Type?
Client Billing Type is a profile-level setting that designates whether a client should be billed as Insurance Pay or Self Pay. Once set, it overrides your global Appointment Type default for that individual client — no manual corrections needed at booking.
This is especially useful for edge cases that come up in real practice:
- A client who prefers to pay out of pocket even though they have insurance on file
- A client whose coverage is still pending verification
- Any client whose billing needs are an exception to your standard workflow
Why It Matters
Without a client-level billing designation, staff may need to manually adjust billing settings each time they schedule or close an appointment for certain clients. Over time, those small adjustments add up to real risk — wrong claim submissions, billing delays, and avoidable administrative back-and-forth.
Setting the billing type once at the profile level means it travels with the client across appointments. The correct workflow triggers automatically, reducing data entry and the likelihood of billing errors.
What You Need to Enable It
Three settings need to be in place before Client Billing Type is available on a client profile:
1. Member permissions — client visibility
To be able to change the client's setting, you either need to be the assigned provider - OR -
Go to Organization > Members, open the […] menu for the relevant member, and navigate to Permissions > Clients. Make sure the member has the setting enabled to see all clients in the organization on the Clients page.
2. Insurance billing enabled
Go to Settings > Insurance and toggle on Enable Insurance Billing. This setting must be active for the billing type options to appear.
3. Set the billing type on the client profile
Navigate to the specific client's profile, click Actions, then select Edit Personal Information. From there, find the Billing Type field and choose either Self Pay or Insurance Pay.
Once saved, this designation will drive the correct billing workflow for that client going forward.
When to Use Each Option
Insurance Pay — Use this for clients whose appointments should be submitted to insurance by default. This is the right setting for clients with active, verified coverage who expect insurance to be billed first.
Self Pay — Use this for clients who are paying out of pocket, regardless of whether they have insurance on file. It's also the right temporary designation for clients whose coverage is still being verified and who shouldn't have claims submitted yet.
A Note on Appointment Type Defaults:
Client Billing Type works alongside - not instead of - your Appointment Type settings. Your Appointment Type still defines the default billing behavior for that service. The client-level setting simply overrides it for that specific individual. If no billing type is set on the client profile, Healthie will fall back to your Appointment Type default as usual.
Priority Default Order:
1. Manual appointment-level override -- Provider checks or unchecks the box on a specific appointment. This always wins.
2. Client billing type -- If set (Insurance Pay or Self Pay), overrides the appointment type default.
3. Appointment type default -- Used when the client has no billing type set. This is the pre-existing behavior.
Have questions about billing settings in Healthie? Reach out to our support team at hello@gethealthie.com or check out other relevant Help Documents.