Tebra scrubs claims and posts remittance in seconds but a 90837 downcoded to 90834, or a Cigna behavioral carve-out routed to the wrong payer, still slips through. We operate the platform the way experienced mental health billers do: daily, and inside your own system.
Independent provider notice: Mental Health Billing is an independent medical billing and revenue cycle management company that supports healthcare providers using Tebra (formerly Kareo). We are not the software developer, owner, or officially affiliated with the software vendor unless explicitly stated. "Tebra" and "Kareo" are trademarks of their respective owner.
If you signed up as a Kareo customer, you're on Tebra now. The scheduling, charting, and billing engine you knew is intact under a unified brand after the 2021 Kareo + PatientPop merger.
Tebra runs real-time eligibility checks, applies a claim-scrubbing rules engine before submission, routes electronic claims through a clearinghouse to thousands of payers, and pulls ERA back for posting. For outpatient behavioral health, the practice-management and billing modules are its strongest work.
Tebra makes it easy to submit a clean claim and just as easy to submit a wrong one quickly, then miss the rejection because nobody checked the dashboard. That configuration-and-follow-through gap is exactly where we work every day.
Take what you need full-service RCM or targeted support. Every task below is run by billers who work only in behavioral health.
Behavioral health revenue lives on a handful of details that repeat thousands of times a year. Here's what experienced billers actually do inside Tebra.
Tebra shows each claim's status in real time submitted, accepted, rejected, denied, paid with color-coded alerts. A rejection caught within 24 hours gets corrected and resubmitted before it ages; the same rejection left a week can slip past timely filing and become an uncollectible write-off. We treat the dashboard as a daily obligation, not a weekly glance.
A large share of commercial plans carve behavioral benefits out to a separate entity — Optum/Evernorth, Carelon, Magellan. If Tebra sends those claims to the medical payer, they bounce. We map the correct payer records so claims land where they adjudicate the first time the classic "Cigna" batch that was really a behavioral carve-out routing to the wrong payer.
The line between 90834 (38–52 min) and 90837 (53+ min) is a frequent target for audits and automated downcoding. We make sure charge entry reflects documented session length, attach add-ons like 90833/90836 correctly with an E/M service, and link diagnosis pointers before the claim goes out.
Tebra returns coverage, copay, deductible, and coinsurance in seconds. We use that at intake to block claims that would otherwise deny, and we track authorization session counts and reauth dates so ongoing therapy or psychological testing doesn't hit a wall mid-treatment.
Automated ERA posting is fast, but fast isn't correct. We match electronic remittance to your contracted rates, flag underpayments and incorrect payment-code mappings, and post patient responsibility accurately — so statements are right the first time.
Instant coverage, copay, deductible, and coinsurance checks at the front desk configured to flag behavioral-benefit specifics.
Automated pre-submission error checks. We tune what it catches and review what it can't like carve-out routing logic.
Primary and secondary claims routed through the clearinghouse to thousands of payers, with attachments where needed.
Real-time, color-coded visibility from submission to adjudication so nothing sits unworked.
Trends, reasons, and outstanding balances in one view. We work the queue and fix the root cause.
Remittance routed to the Electronic Remittance tab, then reconciled against expected payment not just posted blindly.
Behavioral CPT sets, add-on codes, telehealth POS and modifiers entered correctly at the source.
Statements, email/SMS reminders, and online payment options configured for recurring therapy balances.
Appointments flow to charge capture closing the "session happened but never got billed" leak.
A real sequence, start to finish. Small errors early cause big denials later, so we work every stage of the pipeline.
Demographics and insurance entered accurately we standardize what the front desk captures.
Real-time eligibility confirms coverage and cost-sharing; we confirm which entity handles behavioral benefits.
Sessions booked in Tebra so nothing bills that didn't happen and nothing that happened goes unbilled.
For testing, higher levels of care, and some ongoing therapy, we confirm auth is active and track remaining sessions.
Correct psychotherapy, evaluation, testing, or E/M-with-psychotherapy codes with proper modifiers, POS, units, and pointers.
The rules engine checks against payer edits; we review carve-out routing and anything the engine can't judge.
Clean claims go electronically to the clearinghouse and on to the correct payer.
Acceptances, rejections, and payer edits return to the dashboard; rejections are worked within a day.
Remittance is posted and reconciled against contracted rates; underpayments are flagged.
Denied claims are diagnosed, corrected, appealed where warranted, and resubmitted cleanly.
Accurate balances go out with digital payment options.
Outstanding claims worked by aging bucket so nothing quietly ages out.
Numbers roll up into reports that tell you, at a glance, whether the practice is healthy.
Cleaner claims mean fewer trips through the denial cycle.
Correct routing, coding, and auth tracking remove the common causes at the root.
Daily dashboard work keeps money from aging.
Underpayments caught, patient responsibility billed right, old A/R recovered.
Your team treats; billing is handled by people who do only this.
Administrative-scoped access and secure workflows appropriate to PHI.
That difference is the whole game the codes, the carve-out payers, and the failure modes specific to this specialty.
Diagnostic evaluations, timed psychotherapy, family and group sessions, crisis codes, psychotherapy add-ons to E/M, and psychological/neuropsychological testing — plus the telehealth POS and modifiers that trip up general billers.
Tebra is widely used across independent outpatient care. Within behavioral health, we support:
We work inside your existing account. You keep ownership of your data and platform; we operate with the administrative access needed for billing claims, payment posting, and reporting without disrupting your clinical side.
Yes one of the most common things we fix. Many plans carve behavioral benefits out to a separate entity (Optum/Evernorth, Carelon, Magellan). We map the correct payer records in Tebra so claims adjudicate the first time instead of bouncing back from the medical plan.
We enter the code that matches documented session length, keep add-on psychotherapy codes attached correctly when an E/M service is involved, and make sure documentation supports the level billed protecting your first-pass rate against the automated downcoding and audits that target 90837.
Yes. For services that require it psychological testing, higher levels of care, and some ongoing therapy we track approved session counts and reauthorization dates so treatment isn't interrupted and claims don't deny for a lapsed auth.
Yes. Telehealth is heavily used in behavioral health and easy to get wrong. We configure charge entry with the correct place-of-service codes and modifiers per payer so telehealth claims process rather than deny.
We provide credentialing and payer-enrollment support, including CAQH upkeep and follow-through on behavioral panels which are often slow or closed and we keep the resulting provider records aligned in Tebra so claims go out under the right enrollment.
By working the Tebra claim dashboard daily, correcting rejections within a day, fixing root causes (routing, coding, eligibility, authorization) instead of just resubmitting, reconciling ERA against contracted rates, and clearing A/R by aging bucket before anything ages out.
We operate within secure, administrative-scoped workflows appropriate for protected health information and align to HIPAA requirements. We only take the access needed to do billing work, and we can execute a Business Associate Agreement.
We build a reporting rhythm from Tebra's analytics typically collections, A/R aging, denial rate, and clean-claim rate — on a cadence you choose (usually monthly, with more frequent check-ins during cleanup), so you always know how the practice is performing.
Yes. We support the billing side of a migration, set up payer mappings, fee schedules, and ERA enrollments correctly from the start, and make sure open claims and A/R from your prior system don't fall through the cracks.
If denials are creeping up, A/R is aging, or nobody has time to watch the dashboard daily, let's talk. We start with a free review of your account and show you exactly where revenue is leaking.