Psychiatry & Behavioral Health Billing Services
Billing for psychiatrists, therapists, and behavioral health groups — time-based coding, telehealth claims, and carve-out payers handled correctly.
Revenue Clarity Across Medical and Carve-Out Payers
Behavioral health billing carries structural complications general medical billers rarely handle well: many commercial plans carve mental health benefits out to a separate managed behavioral health organization, so claims for the same patient can route to a different payer with different rules — and different deductibles, session limits, and network status — than their medical coverage. Mental health parity requirements shape what plans must cover, but catching improper limits, wrong routing, and quiet underpayments falls to whoever works the claims. CCL Billing provides psychiatry and behavioral health practices across the United States with billing built for that landscape, starting with benefits verified on the behavioral side specifically, before the first appointment.
What We Handle for Behavioral Health Groups
Diagnostic Evaluations
Intakes reported with 90791, or 90792 when medical services are part of the assessment, matched to who performed them.
Psychotherapy Add-On Coding
Time-based 90833, 90836, and 90838 add-ons paired with the E/M when medication management and therapy share an encounter.
Telehealth Claims
Place of service 02 or 10 and modifier 95 applied per plan, with every payer's telehealth policy tracked individually.
Carve-Out Payer Navigation
Claims routed to the right managed behavioral health organization, with parity-suspect denials challenged instead of written off.
TMS & Spravato Authorizations
Treatment-course approvals obtained up front and unit counts monitored so no session falls outside an authorization window.
Incident-To Compliance
Supervision and incident-to requirements applied correctly whenever therapists or nurse practitioners bill under a supervising physician.
20%Increase in Revenue
35%Reduced A/R
7 DaysMinimal Turn Around
90%Remittance Ratios
15%Collected Aging A/R
Time-Based Coding Done Right, Sessions Paid in Full
Telehealth is now core to behavioral health delivery, and we bill it precisely: place of service 02 or 10 depending on where the patient sits, modifier 95 where the plan requires it, and payer-specific telehealth policies tracked individually. We also manage the prior authorizations that gate psychiatric treatment — TMS courses, Spravato (esketamine) sessions, and step-ups to intensive outpatient or partial hospitalization — and we apply incident-to and supervision rules correctly when therapists, counselors, or nurse practitioners bill under a supervising physician, an area where well-meaning practices create compliance exposure simply by misunderstanding the requirements. For group practices, we additionally track which clinician license levels each plan credentials and reimburses, since panels differ by license type from payer to payer.
Plenty of behavioral health revenue also sits in codes practices forget they can bill. Interactive complexity (90785) is reportable when communication factors — a distressed family member in the room, involvement of a child welfare agency — complicate the session. Family psychotherapy is billed with 90846 or 90847 depending on whether the patient is present, group therapy with 90853, and psychological and neuropsychological testing through the 96130–96139 series with its distinct professional and technician components. We also watch the CPT time thresholds that govern psychotherapy code selection, because a 38-minute session documented loosely as “about half an hour” downgrades 90834 revenue to 90832 for no clinical reason.
CCL Billing was founded by a Columbia University–trained biomedical informatics specialist, and behavioral health accounts benefit directly from that background: clean claim submission across medical and carve-out payers, denial workqueues that keep time-based coding disputes moving, and reporting that breaks out collections by clinician, code family, and plan. Your clinicians stay focused on patients; we make sure the sessions get paid.
How We Get Your Sessions Paid
1. Coding & Payer Assessment
We audit a sample of recent encounters for under-coded add-ons, misrouted carve-out claims, and expiring authorizations to show precisely where sessions go unpaid.
2. Quiet Cutover
We map every medical plan and managed behavioral health organization your group bills, then take over submissions and follow-up while your calendar stays full.
3. Accountable Reporting
Reports broken out by clinician, code family, and plan track collections and denial resolution, so progress is measurable rather than anecdotal.
Psychiatry & Behavioral Health Billing FAQ
Can psychotherapy and medication management be billed together?
Yes. When a psychiatrist or psychiatric NP performs both in one encounter, the E/M code is billed with a psychotherapy add-on (90833, 90836, or 90838, selected by time). Documentation must distinguish the psychotherapy time from the medical work, and we review notes for exactly that before claims go out.
How do you bill telehealth for behavioral health services?
We apply the correct place of service, 02 or 10 depending on where the patient is located, plus modifier 95 where the payer requires it, and we track each plan's telehealth policy individually, since behavioral health telehealth rules still vary widely between payers.
Do you manage prior authorizations for TMS, Spravato, and higher levels of care?
Yes. We obtain and track authorizations for TMS treatment courses, Spravato (esketamine) sessions, and step-ups to intensive outpatient or partial hospitalization, and we monitor visit counts against approved units so care is never delivered outside an authorization window.
Do you support behavioral health practices outside New York?
Yes. We work with psychiatry and behavioral health practices across the United States from our Albany, New York headquarters, including groups whose payer lists mix medical plans with behavioral health carve-out organizations.
Contact Us
Get in Touch
Tell us about your behavioral health practice and the payers you struggle with. One of our experts will reach out to review your billing and outline a better approach.
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Office location
99 Washington Avenue, Suite 1008, Albany, New York, 12210