Updated 9/18/2019

Do patients call your office with questions about their billing statements and wonder what the charges listed as “Balance Forward” actually are?

When you generate billing statements, the balance forward date defaults to one month ago. Any patient balance prior to this date gets grouped into a lump sum labeled as “Balance Forward’ on the billing statement.

If you want to see a more itemized list of charges on your billing statements, change the balance forward date to something different, such as three months ago.

Be reasonable about how far back you set the balance forward date, because if you move it back too far, some patients may receive statements with several pages of itemized procedures. Work to find the “sweet spot” with the balance forward date where you give patients as much recent data as they need but not so much that they get confused or overwhelmed by the number of pages included in their billing statement.

To adjust the balance forward date on billing statements:

1. Open the Office Manager and click Reports > Billing.
2. The Balance Forward Date field defaults to one month ago. Change this date as needed.
   
3. Modify other settings and filters as needed.
4. Click OK to generate the statements.

For additional tips on generating billing statements, view these previous posts:

• Verifying Billing Statements to Send
• Using the “If Not Billed Since” Option When Generating Billing Statements
• Determining the Last Time a Patient Received a Billing Statement
• Sending a Copy of a Billing Statement to the Document Center Automatically