I feel pretty safe in stating that most mental health and wellness professionals are not in this line of work primarily for the money. Still, most of us in private practice are hoping to make a living or at least supplement our income. In our endeavors to make our work include a financial benefit, having an effective billing system is of primary importance.

With that in mind, what can we expect from the billing component of a solution? Basically, the billing solution should allow you to create an invoice for an individual session or for any outstanding balance. It should allow you to enter payments received from clients and produce receipts. If you work with insurance, it should allow you to enter payments received from insurance companies. It should allow you to create a statement for a client, covering a range of dates, that includes charges, payments and amounts due. Finally, all of this information should be easily accessible in some way (through reports or conveniently located display of data) so that you can track who owes and what everyone has paid. A solid software billing solution coupled with routine attention will save you time and improve your cash flow.