When is a Good Faith Estimate due?

Within 1 business day of scheduling when the appointment is at least 3 business days out, or within 3 business days of scheduling when it is at least 10 business days out. If a client simply asks for an estimate, it is due within 3 business days of the request.

Is the deadline counted from the appointment or from the booking?

From the booking. The deadline runs forward from the date of scheduling, not backwards from the session, so a client who books three weeks ahead gives you three business days rather than three weeks.

Does a same-week appointment need an estimate?

If the appointment is scheduled fewer than 3 business days in advance, the timing rule does not require one. Many practices send one anyway because the intake paperwork is going out regardless.

When a Good Faith Estimate is due

The deadline is measured from the day the appointment is booked. Reading it as a countdown to the session is the most common way practices miss it.

Reviewed August 2026 · Not legal advice

There are three deadlines, and all three are counted from the day the appointment was booked or the day the client asked — never from the appointment itself.

For an item or service scheduled at least 3 business days before the date the item or service is to be furnished, not later than 1 business day after the date of scheduling; for an item or service scheduled at least 10 business days before … not later than 3 business days after the date of scheduling; and for an item or service for which an estimate is requested, not later than 3 business days after the date of the request.

45 CFR § 149.610(b)(1)(vi)

Read this twice

The clock starts at scheduling. A client who books a first session three weeks out does not give you three weeks — the estimate is due within three business days of the booking. Practices that read the deadline as a countdown to the session are the ones that miss it.

The three deadlines

Booked 3 or more business days ahead — estimate due within 1 business day of booking.
Booked 10 or more business days ahead — estimate due within 3 business days of booking.
Client asks for an estimate — due within 3 business days of the request, whether or not anything is booked.

The two scheduling rules overlap, and the longer lead time earns the longer window. Read them as a single sentence: the further out the appointment, the more time you get, but the count always begins the day it goes in the calendar.

Worked examples

A client books on Monday for a session two days later, on Wednesday. That is fewer than three business days of lead time, so the timing rule does not require an estimate at all. Many practices send one anyway, since the intake paperwork is going out regardless.

A client books on Monday for a session the following Monday — five business days out. That clears the three-day threshold but not the ten-day one, so the estimate is due by end of day Tuesday, one business day after booking.

A client books on the 1st for a first session on the 22nd, roughly fifteen business days out. That clears the ten-day threshold, so you have three business days from the 1st. Not three weeks — three business days.

Business days, not days

Weekends and federal holidays do not count. For a practice that books on a Friday afternoon, the one-business-day deadline lands on Monday rather than Saturday. This helps at the margins but is not a reason to plan around it.

When something changes

If the expected charges change before care is furnished — you add a longer session, the fee changes, the plan of care shifts — a new estimate is required, and it must reach the client no later than 1 business day before the scheduled care. An estimate that no longer describes what you expect to do is not doing its job, and the gap between it and the eventual bill is exactly what the dispute process examines.

Building it into intake

The tightest of these windows is one business day, which is short enough that a manual step tends to get skipped. Most practices that stay on top of it attach the estimate to the same moment as the intake paperwork: booking confirmed, packet out, estimate with it.

EstimateHarbor does not watch your calendar and cannot tell you a deadline is approaching — it sends when you tell it to. The scheduling trigger has to live in your own intake process.

EstimateHarbor is not a law firm and this page is not legal advice. It summarises the federal rule at 45 CFR § 149.610 as we read it, for general information. Your state may impose additional requirements, and how the rule applies to your practice is a question for your own counsel or professional association.