Accounts receivable, or A/R, is the money owed to your practice for care already delivered. An aging report groups that money by how long it has been outstanding.
How the buckets work
- 0 to 30 days: recently billed and usually still in the normal payment window
- 31 to 60 days: worth a status check
- 61 to 90 days: needs active follow-up
- Over 90 days: harder to collect, so these deserve priority attention
What to look for
- The share of your balance older than 90 days
- Whether one payer accounts for most of the older balances
- Whether balances are patient responsibility or insurance
Turn the report into action
- Assign an owner to each older account
- Record what happened on every contact
- Review the aging report on a regular schedule
Takeaway. A healthy A/R is not only smaller. It is also younger, which means fewer accounts are slipping past the point where they are easy to collect.