Required Header Information

ALL HEADERS

It’s good general practice to include the following contact and branding criteria in your header on all the forms used in a professional practice:

1. Your professional name (which may be different than what your friends call you)
2. Your earned credentials (BS, RN, IBCLC, etc.)
3. Your professional phone number (can be your cell/mobile number)
4. Your professional email address

ON SUPERBILLS

When using the header on superbills (especially in the US), the following information is additionally required for because insurance companies need it to process your clients’ insurance claim. If they’re missing, the companies will call you each time to get the missing information and that gets old fast (speaking from experience, lol).  Additional information needed on superbills:

5. National Provider Identifier (NPI) number (free and required for all professional health care providers and educators)
   • Non-RN certified lactation consultant (IBCLC, CLC, and others):
     use code 174N00000X
   • RN, IBCLC: use code 163WL0100X
   • Other credentials: search the NPI taxonomy directory
6. Tax ID number (use either of these two options)
   • Free Employer Identification Number (even if you don’t have employees), OR
   • Your personal Social Security Number (can be disguised by formatting it differently, like 99-9999999 instead of 999-99-9999)
7. Full professional mailing address
   • If you don’t have an office and aren’t comfortable sharing your home address, you can use a US post office (PO) box (that you’ll need to check periodically), the address of a private mailbox service (may forward and be less expensive), or a virtual mailbox.

Other information like your company name, website, social media usernames, and fax number aren’t necessary for insurance companies, but may be good to include for your clients.