Which term describes payments that are not for invoices?

• A. Credit
• B. PLB
• C. Adjustment
• D. Refund

Answer: (B)

Payments that aren’t tied to a specific invoice are posted to the overall patient ledger balance, not to a particular charge. In Epic and remittance practice, these non-invoice payments are labeled as PLB, standing for Patient Ledger Balance. This designation signals that the money is reducing the account total rather than paying down an individual invoice line item, helping the AR team reconcile the account as a whole.

Other terms describe different things: a credit is a negative adjustment that lowers charges or creates a credit on the account for future use; an adjustment changes the billed amount or allowed charges on a charge line; a refund returns money already paid to the payer or patient. None of these inherently denote a payment applied to the overall balance without linking to a specific invoice, so PLB is the most accurate fit.