Charge entry
Charge entry is the step where coded services are entered into the billing system as billable line items, ready for claim generation.
Follows medical coding. Feeds into claim submission and scrubbing.
Where practices lose money here
Charges go missing between the visit and the system
A service performed but never entered is revenue the practice earned and will never collect, and it is invisible unless someone reconciles against the schedule.
Units and place of service get entered wrong
Wrong units or an incorrect place-of-service code changes the allowed amount or triggers a denial, even when the underlying code is correct.
How we handle it
Enter charges within 24 hours of the coded encounter being available.
Reconcile entered charges against the superbill and the EHR schedule daily to catch missing charges before they age out.
Verify units and place of service against the documentation, not just the code.
Flag charge lag by provider or location so the practice can see where the bottleneck actually is.
Hold and route incomplete encounters back for coding or documentation resolution rather than entering them incomplete.
What you receive
Concrete output for this step, delivered on a set schedule rather than on request.
- A daily charge entry log.
- A missing-charge reconciliation report comparing the schedule to entered charges.
- A charge lag report by provider.
Where this sits in the cycle
Charge entry is the last stop before a claim is built. Anything missed here never reaches a payer, which makes the reconciliation step as important as the entry itself.
Questions about this step
How do you catch a missed charge?
By reconciling the day’s schedule and EHR encounters against what was actually entered as a charge, daily, not at month end when it is too late to easily recover.
What is charge lag and why does it matter?
Charge lag is the time between the visit and the charge being entered. Long lag delays the entire claim cycle and increases the odds of a timely filing problem downstream.
Want us to review how this is handled in your practice right now?
The free billing audit looks at charge entry alongside the rest of the cycle, and comes back with specific findings.