In an effort to support our providers with keeping their practice in one place, Headway offers a way for you to see private pay clients through our calendar and choose how you want to bill them.
With these billing options, you can:
- Set your own rate for clients you’re seeing out-of-network, who don’t have insurance, or who have requested to be billed out-of-pocket instead of using insurance.
- Use your existing Headway cancellation policy.
- Choose from two billing options:
- Private pay on Headway: Bill your clients through Headway and have us handle payments and payouts for you. Once your client pays, you’ll receive payment through Headway with the rest of your payouts.*
- Bill elsewhere: Bill them off of the Headway platform using your own preferred service and handle billing and payouts by yourself. Headway won’t pay you or charge your client.
- Schedule and confirm these sessions directly in your Headway calendar.
How private pay works
When you add a client to Headway, you’ll see 3 options for how to bill them: insurance, private pay, or bill elsewhere. If you select private pay or bill elsewhere, you can set your own session rate for each individual, or use a default private pay rate.
After you finish adding your client or setting up their billing method, they’ll receive an email with instructions to log into their Headway account and sign consent for how they’ll be billed for sessions.
Client eligibility
Clients can be seen via private pay or bill elsewhere if they have requested that their insurance is not billed for sessions, or if Headway doesn't accept their insurance plan. This includes situations where Headway previously accepted their plan, but coverage ended, the plan was terminated, or the plan was updated to no longer include mental health benefits.
Clients with Medicare or Medicaid policies are not eligible for private pay or bill elsewhere through Headway at this time.
Enabling private pay
To enable private pay on Headway for your practice:
- Visit your Settings in the provider portal
- Click on the Billing tab
- Next to Private pay rate, click Enable private pay
- Check the box to agree to private pay terms and conditions
- Click the Next button to proceed
- Enter your session rate
- Note: You can always change this at a later time.
- Click Save
Confirming private pay sessions on Headway
Session details for private pay / bill elsewhere sessions are confirmed in your Headway calendar the same way as any other session.
During the session confirmation process, you won't be required to submit CPT and diagnosis codes, but you have the option to.
Note: CPT and diagnosis code details must be submitted for any clients who would like to submit their invoices to their insurance to utilize out-of-network benefits. However, please note that clients who have in-network insurance but have chosen not to use it for sessions on Headway cannot submit out-of-network claims to their insurance.
Billing and payments (private pay only)
You’ll be paid for your private pay sessions in your bi-weekly Headway payouts, and be able to keep track of everything in your Payments tab.
Payouts for private pay sessions will account for the cost of using Stripe, our payment processor, plus a flat rate to cover Headway’s cost of supporting the session (0.8% + $3.30 or 2.3% + $3.30, depending on payment method.)
Client experience (private pay only)
Private pay clients will be billed when you confirm a session, just like your in-network insurance clients are. They’ll receive invoices and reminders from Headway and be able to keep track of their appointments in their account.
You can message and schedule them in the provider portal, and they’ll be held to your Headway cancellation policy.
* Headway is not responsible for payments that private pay or bill elsewhere clients do not complete.