From Aging AR to Clean Claims: A Guide to Accounts Receivable Recovery
In today’s financial climate, healthcare organizations can’t afford to let receivables age out. Yet across the country, millions of dollars in revenue sit untouched in aging AR—quietly eroding cash flow, increasing write-offs, and overwhelming billing teams.
This guide breaks down how to move from aging accounts to clean claim submission, and why a strong accounts receivable recovery strategy is essential for healthy revenue cycle management.
What Is Accounts Receivable Recovery?
Accounts receivable (AR) recovery refers to the process of identifying, following up on, and collecting unpaid or underpaid claims. When handled proactively, it reduces write-offs, improves your net collection rate, and strengthens your healthcare reimbursement performance.
But most practices don’t struggle with billing—they struggle with billing follow-up.
Why AR Ages in the First Place
Aging AR doesn’t happen overnight. It builds up due to:
Delayed or denied claims that go unresolved
Poor front-end data capture (eligibility, authorization, coding errors)
Lack of accountability in follow-up workflows
Incomplete or outdated payer communication
The result? Revenue slips into the 60-, 90-, or even 120-day bucket—and eventually gets written off.
The Real Cost of Aging AR
Letting receivables age out affects more than your balance sheet:
Slower cash flow for operations
Increased burden on staff
Declining performance on revenue cycle KPIs
Reduced payer trust and higher audit exposure
If over 25% of your AR is past 90 days, that’s a strong sign your medical billing optimization process needs attention.
5 Steps to Clean Up Your Aging AR
To recover revenue and get back on track, implement these five core steps:
1. Segment AR by Age and Payer
Break your AR into 30-day buckets and prioritize claims by payer type and balance. Medicare denials should be worked differently than commercial or self-pay.
2. Identify Root Causes
Review common trends: Are certain CPT codes getting denied? Are authorization errors leading to delays? This helps strengthen your denial management pipeline too.
3. Assign Clear Ownership
Many AR teams operate reactively. Build a dedicated recovery workflow with assigned owners and response timelines. Accountability increases resolution.
4. Track AR Recovery KPIs
Measure first-touch success rate, AR over 90 days, and denial overturn rate. These revenue cycle KPIs will guide your recovery efforts and uncover team gaps.
5. Prevent Recurrence
Recovery is good. Prevention is better. Every resolved claim should feed back into front-end training and process improvement.
Clean Claims: The End Goal
The goal isn’t just to recover old revenue—it’s to reduce aging AR in the future.
A clean claim is one that gets paid on the first submission. And the best AR teams are focused on both ends: recovering past-due claims and tightening up the systems that create them.
This includes:
Pre-submission validation
Real-time eligibility checks
Automated edits for missing/incorrect data
Continuous payer rule updates
Final Thoughts: Clean Up What’s Owed—and Prevent It from Happening Again
Every claim in your aging AR report is earned revenue—it’s just sitting in limbo.
With the right strategy, workflow, and analytics, your organization can reduce aging AR, recover hidden revenue, and ensure faster healthcare reimbursement across the board.
If you’re not sure where to start, start with your AR report.
The revenue is already there. You just need to go get it.
Need help auditing your AR or building a recovery workflow?