📝 Overview
Billed units are the quantifiable measure of a service submitted to an insurance company for reimbursement. For timed services — like massage, physical rehabilitation, or other therapies — units represent a defined time increment (for example, one unit per 15 minutes). For untimed services, like a standard chiropractic adjustment, units are almost always set to one regardless of visit length.
What Are Billed Units?
Definition: Billing units are the quantifiable measure of services or products provided to a patient that are submitted for reimbursement to an insurance company. Each billed unit corresponds to a specific quantity of a service, procedure, or item delivered.
For time-based services, units are billed per time increment (e.g., 1 unit per 15 minutes for certain therapies).
For quantity-based services, units reflect the number of times a service or item is provided (e.g., number of injections).
For example, a 30-minute massage (CPT 97124) would be billed as 2 units, since each unit represents 15 minutes. More units generally increase the billed amount, and insurance companies review units to ensure they match documentation and treatment time
Important: If your service duration exceeds 15 minutes, you must assign additional units when setting up or posting the service.
Setting the Default Billed Units on a Service
Where you navigate depends on your user type:
System users:
Navigate to System Settings, Services.
Location users:
Navigate to your live location, then Settings, Transaction Settings, Services.
Step by Step:
Open the service from the Services list.
Locate the Billed Units field in the service setup form.
Enter the number of units that reflect the standard duration for that service.
For example, if a service runs 60 minutes and each unit represents 15 minutes, enter 4.
Save the service.
The service-level setting is the default that pre-populates every time that service is charged.
Set it once and ChiroHD will use it automatically.
If you forgot to set units when the service was first created, you can go back and edit this field at any time. The change updates the default going forward — it does not affect charges that have already been posted.
Adjusting Billed Units When Posting a Charge
If a specific visit ran longer or shorter than the standard duration, you can adjust units when posting the charge without changing the default for everyone else.
From the patient profile:
Open the patient's profile and click New Transaction.
Select the service.
Update the Units field before saving.
From the SOAP Note screen:
In the Charges section of the SOAP Note, click into the service line to open the transaction modal.
Adjust the Units field.
Save.
Both paths accomplish the same thing — use whichever fits your workflow. Providers adding charges in the SOAP Note can handle it there directly; front desk staff posting charges manually can use the patient profile.
Setting a Patient-Specific Unit Default on Their Case
If one patient consistently receives a non-standard duration — for example, they always receive a 45-minute session when the service default is set for 60 minutes — you can configure a patient-specific unit override on their case. This way, the correct units pre-populate automatically on every visit without manual adjustment.
Open the patient's profile and navigate to their Cases.
Select the relevant case.
Click on the default charges tab.
Find the service in the dropdown list.
Click Override next to the Units column for that service.
Enter the patient-specific unit value.
Save the case.
From that point on, when a charge is posted for this patient using this service, it will pre-populate with the correct units automatically.
If you have further questions on Setting Up Default Services, please see our other resources.
Verifying and Correcting Units After Charges Are Posted
After charges are posted, you can verify or correct units at any time — this is especially useful if an ERA comes back with a mismatch.
Open the patient's profile and navigate to the Transactions tab.
Click the edit icon on the charge line you want to review.
The transaction modal opens — confirm the units match your clinical documentation and the payer's EOB or ERA.
If a correction is needed, update the Units field, save, then rebill the invoice item and process the ERA.
If you have further questions about Editing a Transaction or if your line is in the middle of a billing process, and you need to know how to How to Rebill a Claim, please see our other resources on this.
✅ Key Takeaways
Set the Billed Units field on each service to establish the default — this drives what pre-populates on every charge for that service.
Override units at the time of charge posting (via the patient profile or SOAP Note screen) when a single visit deviates from the standard.
Use the patient-case-level unit override when one patient consistently receives a different duration, to avoid manual adjustments every visit.
You can verify and correct units post-posting via the Transactions tab — critical for ERA reconciliation.
📌 Conclusion
Managing billed units in ChiroHD comes down to three scenarios: setting the service default, overriding it for an individual visit, and configuring a patient-specific default. Getting units right at each level keeps your claims accurate and your documentation aligned. If you have questions about unit requirements for specific CPT codes or payer rules, check with your billing team or third-party payer directly.