How to read an AR aging report
The aging report shows how long money has been waiting. It is the most useful single report in medical billing.
What the report shows
An aging report lists unpaid claims and sorts them by how long they have been outstanding. Most reports use buckets such as 0 to 30 days, 31 to 60, 61 to 90, 91 to 120 and over 120 days. They can be split by payer, provider or patient balance.
What to look for first
- Growth in the older buckets. Money that moves into 90 days and beyond is harder to collect.
- One payer with a large share of old claims. This often points to a process problem with that payer, such as a missing document or a wrong ID format.
- Credits and unapplied payments. These can hide real balances or create refunds that are owed.
- Insurance versus patient balances. They need different follow-up.
Four numbers to track
- Days in AR: total outstanding AR divided by your average daily charges. Lower is better, and the right level depends on specialty and payer mix, so compare against your own history.
- Clean claim rate: claims accepted without errors on first submission, divided by claims submitted.
- Denial rate: denied claims divided by claims submitted.
- Net collection rate: payments collected divided by what you were entitled to collect after contract adjustments.
What to do next
Pick the largest old balances by payer and work those first. Record every call and every answer. Review the report weekly. If you want help, a baseline audit of your aging report is where our process starts, and you can read about our old AR recovery service.
Arovia RCM does not guarantee collection outcomes. Please do not send patient information through the website or by email before agreements are signed.
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