What is a Medical Bill Format?

A medical bill format is an invoice template that helps medical professionals create bills or invoices for the services provided or the medicines sold. It can be used by medical practitioners like Doctors and hospital staff, as well as pharmacies and medical shops.
A medical invoice format typically includes the hospital or the pharmacy’s name, address, and contact details, empty fields to include the details of the patient, diagnosis, prescribed or administered medications, services provided, tests prescribed or done, etc.

A medical bill typically acts as a record for patient information which would be maintained for current and future use. Medical invoice templates are utilised by any doctor’s office, hospital, clinic, or healthcare organisation to show patients the cost they have incurred from the medical consultation.

Need for Medical Invoice Format

A medical bill format is essential to quickly create bills in a fast-paced business environment. Manually creating medical invoices may not be the right idea as it makes medical services look unprofessional and is also time-consuming. You must either have a medical bill format or have medical billing software that can accurately generate bills on time.

Sample Medical Bill Format

Every healthcare organisation has its own medical bill format. However, a sample format is provided here, which includes the basic and important details that must be included in every medical bill. It would help you understand the key fields that must be created in a hospital bill format.

Medical Bill Format – Fields to Include

The following details must be included in a hospital bill format to ensure every detail is covered.

• Information about both the healthcare provider – Name, Address, Contact Details
• Patient information – Name, Age, Sex, Contact Details
• Diagnosis Made – Symptoms/Complaints & Possible Reasons
• Course of Action Prescribed – Tests/Medicines
• Procedures Done, if any  
• Total cost – mention in detail as a separate charge for each procedure done.
• Subtotal due, taxes due, and the total balance due
• Terms of payment  and acceptable modes of payment like cash, debit card or credit card, etc.

Medical Bill Template in Different Formats – Word, Excel, PDF

Medical Bill Format in Word

Word is one of the easy-to-work tools available to everyone. Using Word, you can create a medical bill format that would be suitable for your organisation. Simply take a blank Word document, insert the required fields that are mentioned above, and once you’re sure, save the document. Whenever you wish to create a medical invoice format, make a copy of the main document, fill out the details in the fields, save the doc and take a printout.
You can also use the free template in Word available on the page. You can also customise the template to match your brand image and include other required fields as per your needs.

Medical Bill Format in Excel

After Word, Excel is another tool that helps you to create medical bill formats without much effort. With pre-defined rows and columns, Excel allows you to create medical invoices easily. Just highlight the rows and columns you need, enter the field names and save the sheet. Whenever you wish to create a hospital bill format in Excel, make a copy of the main document, fill out the details in the fields and take a printout.
You can also use the free medical template in Excel, which is available on the page. Customise the format to match your brand image and include other required fields as per your needs.

Medical Bill Format in PDF

A PDF version of the medical bill template is available on the page and is free to download. However, the PDF version is not editable and requires you to download and use it manually that is to fill it using a pen. In case, you require an online PDF medical invoice template, you can use either the Word or Excel templates available on the page, fill in the details and download them as PDF files. The advantage of online PDF documents is that once saved, they cannot be edited. Hence, before saving make sure all the entered information is accurate. 

Benefits of Using Downloadable Medical Bill Formats

• You can use them whenever you want. You just have to download the medical bill format to your computer and use it for all medical invoices.
• Medical invoice templates are free to use. You do not have to pay for it.
• An electronic medical invoice template always looks professional compared to a hand-written copy.
• Saves your time while billing the patients and also makes the invoices accurate and consistent.
• You can take a printout of the medical invoice and hand it over to the patients, or you can even mail the invoice.

However, choosing the right downloadable medical bill format from a trusted source like myBillBook is essential for accurate and hassle free medical billing. 

Drawbacks of Downloadable Medical Invoice Formats

Despite the above discussed benefits there are few significant drawbacks of using free medical invoice formats that are available online. Some of them include – 

• • Limited customisation: Most templates are predefined and are difficult to customise as per your requirements. Even when they allow customisations, formats created in Word are little tricky to edit. For instance, if you insert or delete a particular field the rest of the fields might get disturbed forcing you to edit the entire document. 
  • Manual entry & errors: The free medical bill templates require you to enter the data manually. The patient information, billing codes, rates, taxes, discounts, etc., need to be added by you or your staff which might increase the risk of errors, leading to billing disputes and delays in payment.
  • Inconsistent medical bills: The billing system in a health care organisation will be handled by different staff members who might use the templates inconsistently. This might lead to variability in billing documents and potential confusion for patients and insurance companies.

• Not Integrated with other systems: The medical bills that are created manually are not integrated with other electronic health records or enterprise management systems. This requires you to re-enter the entire billing information thus increases the workload.

• Data security issues: When you create medical bills using the free templates, you would save the created files on local devices or insecure cloud services. This poses significant security risks, including data breaches. 

• Others issues: Besides these major drawbacks of using free formats for medical invoices, you will also face other issues like scalability, compliance, productivity, no business analytics, discrepancies and outdated billing practices. 

While downloadable medical invoice formats are helpful for small practices or occasional use, the drawbacks of using them outweigh the merits. These drawbacks can be can mitigated by transitioning to a specialised medical billing software like myBillBook for all you medical billing needs. Listed here are the benefits of using myBillBook medical billing software instead of medical invoice formats.

Benefits of using myBillbook to Generate Medical Bills

myBillbook is a comprehensive billing and accounting software that helps medical organisations create medical invoices more efficiently. Listed below are the features offered by myBillBook invoicing software.

• myBillbook helps you calculate GSTs, due dates, discounts, total price, and other values in seconds.
• Users can search for medical products by barcodes and names.
• Both the cash received from the patient, and the outstanding payment will be displayed on the invoices.
• The billing staff can also add a signature to the invoice before sending the invoice to the patient.
• myBillbook is a cloud-based software that is compatible with the web app, windows, and android.
• It can support multiple languages like English, Hindi, Gujarati, and Tamil.
• Using myBillbook, you can create and share bills on mobile through Whatsapp anytime.
• You can also collect payment through UPI and can add and manage staff and their activities.
• It also offers 24/7 customer support in case you have any queries or requests to make.