This first part of the UK insurance guide gets your account claim-ready: you'll switch on insurance billing, create your insurers, connect Pabau to your Healthcode account, and add the billing codes and price lists your claims will be built from.
This guide is for practices in the United Kingdom. Claims are submitted electronically through the Healthcode clearing service, with additional tools for BUPA membership checks and insurer remittances.
1. Turn on insurance billing
- Go to Setup → Business Details and open the Features tab.
- Find Insurance Billing and switch the toggle on, then click Save Changes.
This unlocks the Insurance tab on client cards, the Money → Claims dashboard, and remittances.
2. Create your insurers
Each insurer you bill is a third party in Pabau:
- Go to Setup → Third Parties and click Create Third Party.
- Set the Type to Insurance and enter the insurer's name and contact details.
- Once your Healthcode account is connected (next step), the Healthcode identifier dropdown lets you tie this insurer to its Healthcode counterpart.
3. Register with Healthcode
Healthcode is the clearing service that carries electronic claims to UK insurers — some insurers, including Vitality, only accept invoices submitted through it. Register on the Healthcode website and select Pabau as your practice management system. Healthcode will issue your Site ID, Webservices ID and password.
Your registration must be specific to Pabau — credentials issued for a previous software provider will not work. Healthcode can update an existing account for you over the phone (0330 900 4900).
4. Connect Healthcode to Pabau
- Go to Money → Claims and click Configure in the top-right corner, then open the Healthcode tile.
- On the Credentials tab, enter your Site ID (it starts with "HC"), Webservices ID and password, then click Check Credentials.
Once the link is verified, the Overview tab tracks your setup completeness and flags anything that would block a claim:
5. Map your insurers
On the Insurers tab, match each insurer from your Healthcode account to the corresponding Pabau payer so claims route correctly. Anything left "Not linked" can't be claimed electronically.
6. Add location payee codes
On the Locations tab, enter the Healthcode payee code for each insurer at each clinic location. Insurers use these to identify where treatment took place and who to pay.
7. Identify your clinicians
On the Clinicians tab, choose how Healthcode identifies each practitioner:
- Use GMC numbers — switch the toggle on and make sure each clinician's GMC number is recorded in Team → Personal Details. A different registration number (for example HCPC) can be used instead.
- Use payee codes — leave the toggle off and enter each clinician's per-insurer Healthcode payee code.
8. Review the claim defaults
The Defaults tab pre-fills every claim with your practice's standard values (claim source, episode setting, signature indicators, currency and so on) and controls whether each field is Editable, Read-only, Hidden or Exempt on the claim form. The shipped defaults suit most outpatient practices — adjust values unique to you, such as the payee provider name and treating hospital.
9. Add billing codes to your services
Insurers need to know what was done (a CCSD procedure code) and how to classify it (an ISC — Industry Standard Code):
- Go to Setup → Services and open a service you'll claim for.
- On the Pricing tab, expand Insurance Billing and click Add A Billing Code.
- Pick CCSD code or ISC code and search the built-in code books by code or description.
You can also browse the full CCSD and ISC code books under Setup → Diagnostic & Billing Codes, and add codes in bulk from the Services list.
10. Create per-insurer price lists
Insurers pay contract rates, not your standard prices. Go to Setup → Price Lists, create a price list per insurer (or contract), restrict it to that insurer under Rules, and set the agreed price per service under Pricing. When a booking is charged to that insurer, the right price list is applied automatically.
Your account is now ready to bill insurers. Next: add insurance details to your clients.
The UK insurance guide series
- Part 1: Set up the insurance essentials (this article)
- Part 2: Client insurance setup
- Part 3: Connect appointments to insurance
- Part 4: Submit and track claims with Healthcode
Questions? Reach us any time via the in-app chat — we're happy to help you get your first claims out the door.