Direct §302 Billing versus an External Billing Centre: An Honest Comparison
Practices that bill health insurers directly under §302 SGB V keep every euro they earn – no service fees, no patient data handed to third parties. TheraNext makes direct billing as straightforward as sending an email: a built-in therapeutic-guidelines traffic light, proactive rejection management, and GoBD-compliant bookkeeping all in one platform. Here is what actually matters when choosing between the two models.
Costs: What a per-prescription fee really adds up to
External billing providers typically charge 1–3 % of the prescription value as a service fee. For a mid-sized practice processing 300 prescriptions per month at an average value of €80, that amounts to €720–€2,160 per year – money that leaves the practice permanently, with no measurable return once your software can handle billing itself.
- ✓0 % billing fee with TheraNext – all revenue stays in the practice
- ✓Predictable monthly software licence instead of a revenue-dependent percentage
- ✓Short contract terms, no hidden minimum volumes
Control: Real-time visibility versus a black box
Billing via an external centre means handing over patient data and prescription details to a third party. Rejections and returns are often reported weeks later, leaving little room to react. With TheraNext, therapists see every submission, every insurer status, and every discrepancy directly in the dashboard – in real time, with no intermediary.
- ✓Full billing history accessible at any time
- ✓Rejections visible immediately and correctable within the application
- ✓All data held on servers in Germany, field-level encryption, 2FA
Speed: Direct submission with no bottleneck
Every intermediary step costs time. An external centre collects, reviews, and only then forwards submissions – adding 3–10 working days before the insurer pays. TheraNext submits prescriptions directly to health insurers under §302 SGB V. No third-party buffer, no postal delays, no waiting for batch runs.
- ✓Direct submission to all relevant health insurers
- ✓No third-party batch schedule – you control the timing
- ✓Faster payment improves cash-flow planning
Rejection management: Catching errors before submission, not after
The most common cause of rejected prescriptions is a deviation from therapeutic guidelines – wrong frequency, missing diagnosis group, expired authorisation. TheraNext flags these issues with an integrated traffic-light system at the point of creating the prescription, before anything is submitted. External centres review on their own schedule; you can only react once the payment has already failed to arrive.
- ✓Proactive traffic-light checker: errors flagged before submission
- ✓Full support for Blanko prescriptions built in
- ✓Lower rejection rates, stronger cash flow
Conclusion: Which model makes sense when?
An external billing centre can make sense when a practice has absolutely no capacity for onboarding or is very small. However, as soon as a practice processes more than 50 prescriptions per month and wants control over its data, costs, and liquidity, self-billing with the right software pays for itself from the very first month. TheraNext was built from the ground up for exactly this scenario – no billing centre, no fee leakage.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a separate insurer contract to do direct §302 billing?
Yes. Healthcare providers need a supply contract under §124 SGB V as well as billing agreements with individual health insurers. These are concluded directly with the relevant associations or insurers. TheraNext simplifies setup by having insurer master data pre-loaded in the platform.
How much work is it to switch from a billing centre to self-billing?
The technical switch in TheraNext typically takes a morning. You can run down any remaining prescriptions with your current provider in parallel while starting direct submissions for new ones immediately. Our onboarding team supports the setup at no extra charge.
What happens when an insurer rejects a claim?
TheraNext surfaces every rejection directly in the dashboard, including the stated reason. You can correct the affected prescription within the application and resubmit without waiting for feedback from a third party.
Is self-billing with TheraNext GDPR-compliant?
Yes. TheraNext runs all servers exclusively in Germany, encrypts sensitive fields at database level, and protects every account with two-factor authentication. No patient data is transferred to external billing providers.
Try self-billing free – no commitment
Start your free trial and see for yourself how direct §302 billing works inside TheraNext. No billing centre, no minimum contract, no hidden fees.