How dental offices bill: one line per procedure
Dental work is billed by procedure, not by the hour. An exam, a cleaning, a set of x-rays and a filling are four separate services with four separate fees, even when they happen in one 50 minute visit. Each gets its own line so the patient can see exactly what was done that day.
Many US practices add a procedure code beside each line. CDT, the Code on Dental Procedures and Nomenclature, is one of the code sets named in HIPAA regulations, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Codes take the form of a D followed by four digits. Use them if your practice software already does; a patient invoice also works with plain descriptions.
Example lines on a dental invoice template
The table shows how a routine recall visit and a small restoration might appear. The codes are the common CDT numbers for these services; the fees are examples only, because dental fees vary widely by city and practice. Your fee schedule should be the single place these prices come from.
| Code | Plain description on the invoice | Example fee |
|---|---|---|
| D0120 | Periodic exam | $65 |
| D1110 | Adult cleaning | $115 |
| D0274 | Bitewing x-rays, four images | $78 |
| D2391 | Tooth colored filling, one surface, back tooth | $185 |
| D2740 | Ceramic crown | $1,250 |
Keep health details off the dentist invoice
An invoice gets emailed, printed, forwarded to a spouse and filed in shared folders, so it should carry only what is needed to explain the charge. The procedure name and code do that. Diagnoses, x-ray findings, medications, medical history and clinical notes belong in the patient record, not on the bill.
- Use “Ceramic crown” rather than describing the fracture that caused it.
- Leave out tooth numbers unless the patient asks for them.
- Address the invoice to the person responsible for payment, such as a parent for a child patient, and put the patient’s name in a short reference line only.
- Send it to the email address the patient gave for billing, not a work address you found elsewhere.
Billing a treatment plan across several visits
Larger work such as a crown or a series of fillings often runs over two or three appointments. Agree with the patient up front which visit triggers the charge and how a deposit is handled, then repeat the plan name on every invoice so the payments can be matched to it later.
For example, a crown plan priced at $1,250 might show a $400 payment at the preparation visit and the remaining $850 at the fitting visit. List the full fee on the final invoice, then “Less payment received, Sept 9, $400”, so the patient sees the whole cost and the balance together. If you offer payment plans, state the dates and amounts in the terms; any late charge should be a flat fee you have already disclosed.
Sales tax, numbers and the dental bill format
In the US, sales tax is set by states and local governments, which charge different rates on different items or nothing at all, so check your state tax agency about anything you sell over the counter, such as electric toothbrushes or whitening kits. Leave the tax field empty for lines that are not taxable in your state.
Give every invoice a unique number and keep a separate patient account number if your software uses one. Put the visit date on each line when one invoice covers more than one appointment.
Filling in the dental template and generator
Download the dental layout from this page as a Word document, an Excel sheet or a PDF. To type straight into a form, open the dental invoice generator with a recall visit loaded and replace the codes, fees and patient details with your own before you download the PDF.
General practice and walk in clinics have a medical invoice template, and rehab clinics billing by session can use the physiotherapy invoice. Our guide to payment terms helps you word due dates, and the full set of layouts is on the invoice template hub.
Fill it in on screen and download or email a real PDF. No sign up.