How to enable and configure the feature ?

Third-Party Billing lets you bill services to a third party (an insurer, an employer, a government program, etc.) instead of — or in addition to — the client. Before you can create payers, attach funding policies to clients, or log billable time, the feature must be enabled and configured for your clinic.

▎ Who can do this? This is a clinic-level setting, so you need administrator access to your clinic settings. Viewing the Third-Party Billing dashboards later also requires the Financial information permission.

1. Open the Third-Party Billing settings

Go directly to: https://www.colib.io/settings?show=directbilling 

Then expand the Third Party Billing panel.

2. Turn the feature on

Switch the Enable Third-Party Billing toggle to ON. The configuration options below only appear once the feature is enabled.

3. Set your default hourly rate

In Default hourly rate for billable services, enter the rate (in $) that will be used to value your billable services. This rate is applied whenever a more specific rate is not defined.

4. Choose how hourly rates work

Use the Billable hours are the same for all practitioners toggle:

- ON — every practitioner is billed at the default hourly rate you just entered.
- OFF — an Hourly rate per practitioner list appears. Enter a specific rate for each practitioner. A practitioner with their own rate uses it; any practitioner left blank falls back to the default hourly rate.

▎ The rate is captured as a snapshot at the moment time is logged or an appointment is invoiced. Changing a rate later
▎ does not retroactively change entries that were already recorded.

5. Add your payers

In the Payers section you can search existing payers and click Add a payer to create new ones (insurers, employers, government programs…).

▎ Creating payers is covered step by step in the article "Third-Party Billing: how to create payers".

6. Configure the funding alerts

The Funding Alerts section controls when Colib warns you that a client's funding policy is running low or about to expire. Set the thresholds that fit your clinic:

- Alert when X% of funded hours are consumed — e.g. 80 means you are warned once 80% of the authorized hours have been used. (Default: 80, must be between 1 and 100.)
- Alert when $X of funding amount remains — e.g. 500 means you are warned once the remaining funded amount drops to $500 or below. (Default: 500.)
- Alert when policy expiry date is within X days — e.g. 30 means you are warned 30 days before a policy's end date. (Default: 30.)

▎ A threshold left at 0 disables that particular alert. How alerts are evaluated and sent is detailed in the article "Third-Party Billing: how do funding alerts work".

7. Choose who receives the alerts

In Notification recipients, pick one or both:

- Notify clinic email — the alert is sent to your clinic's contact email.
- Notify practitioner assigned to client — the alert is sent to the practitioner attached to the client concerned.

▎ Safety net: if the alert cannot reach a practitioner (option off, or the client has no assigned practitioner), Colib automatically falls back to the clinic email so an alert is never lost.

8. Choose how the alerts are delivered

In Notification channel, pick one or both:
- Email — alerts are sent by email.
- In-product notification — alerts appear in the Colib notification bell.

9. Save

 Click Save at the bottom of the panel. You'll see a confirmation message once your settings are stored.

You're ready

With the feature enabled you can now:
1. Create payers (insurers, employers…).
2. Attach a funding policy to a client.
3. Log billable time and create invoices addressed to a payer.

  Each of these steps is covered in its own article.