One thing that can frequently confuse users is that when viewing reports that give distinct counts (number of claims, number of patients, etc.), the values on lines may not add up to the grand total shown.
To discuss why this is, let's use an example of a report showing the number of patients seen by the practice, divided out by provider. On a given day, I had only one patient come into the office, but for two appointments -- one with Provider A, one with Provider B. Here is how this report would look:
| Provider Name | Number of Patients |
| Provider A | 1 |
| Provider B | 1 |
| Grand Total | 1 |
You can see that the Grand Total isn't the sum of each row, but it's correct -- Provider A saw one patient, Provider B saw one patient, and yet one patient total came into the practice that day.
This is possible in any case where we're looking at a count of something that could fall into two different categories-- patient count grouped by provider as above, claim count grouped by CPT code, even charge line count grouped by ICD code.
If you ever want the Grand Total to be equal to the sum of the lines, in Excel you can remove the Grand Total line and create your own. Just know that the new total you're looking at won't be the real count of the total number of patients or claims you're reporting on.
