Accounts Receivable days, or AR days, are one of the crucial performance indicators that determine the success of a Practice. Accounts Receivable(AR) indicates the payment amount that has not yet been collected from the patients or the insurance providers.  Accounts Receivable is basically the amount owed to the practice, and AR days refer to the amount of time it takes to get the complete payment for a claim. An increase in AR days can lead to a decrease in the revenue of the firm. Therefore, it becomes highly important to have proper Accounts Receivable management. Proper and careful AR management can help in increasing the overall revenue of your practice. Higher accounts receivable days can have a negative impact on the overall operation of your practice. It can negatively affect the quality of patient care and treatment, which in turn can affect the patient experience, leading to patients losing trust and contentment in your practice. For the healthy working of your practice, it is important to manage your Accounts Receivable so as to reduce your days in AR.

Here’s why you should pay more attention to your AR days:

• To receive maximum reimbursement from insurance companies.

The AR management team makes sure that the claims are submitted or resubmitted to the insurance payers properly without any delay. They ensure reduced AR days by making sure that all the required steps are taken to collect the money if the claim is underpaid so that the practice receives maximum reimbursement.

• Cut down the cost, time and effort that go into the resubmission of claim denials.

 Proper AR management helps in handling claim denials without any loss in time or money as fast as possible.

• Proper AR management helps in tracking denied claims.

It helps in identifying and analyzing the reasons for claim denials and submits appeals for these denied claims on a timely basis. Thus reducing the AR days.

• Helps keep track of the amount that goes into the aged category every month.

This is one of the many crucial aspects of maintaining a healthy revenue cycle as accounts that are aged over 90 days are at a high risk of turning into unpaid claims. Proper management of AR days thus helps in avoiding insurance going unpaid.

• Helps in identifying the customers or accounts that are at high risk of being unpaid.

It helps to identify late payers, thus helping the practice in taking measures to prevent the same. It also effectively reduces the AR days by helping the practice take appropriate actions to guarantee that the payment is precisely collected if the majority of the past-due amount can be attributed to a single customer.

• Helps in faster claims submissions.

With the proper management of accounts receivable, you can make sure that the practice is submitting the claims to the payers without any delay. Any delay in the submission of claims can cause a lot of trouble for the smooth functioning of the practice therefore it is important to make sure that the claims are submitted as soon as possible so that the AR days remain low.

• Helps ensure the smooth functioning of the practice.

Fewer AR days help in increasing the overall revenue of the practice, which in turn provides the practice with the money to recruit and pay their staff, get new and improved technology and high capital for expansion.

• Helps improve the patient experience.

With the decrease in AR days, the quality of patient care and patient experience increases, thus building the trust and contentment of the patients.

Accounts Receivable Management

Accounts receivable management services include the administration of reports pertaining to insurance, write-offs, bad debt evaluations, collection analysis, and ratio analysis. They are responsible for the management of denied claims, finding the reasons and analyzing claim denials so as to maximize patient payment and increase the overall revenue of the practice, effectively decreasing the AR days. Therefore, managing accounts receivable requires a great deal of knowledge about the various reasons for claim denials and the ways to reduce them. Don’t shy away from contacting the insurance providers or the patients for a better understanding of the reasons for claim denials or if any related doubts need to be cleared. Go through the claims thoroughly, making sure they are accurate and error-free, before the claim submission. The AR management also needs to do proper follow-up on patients and the accounts of patients who do not make timely payments need to be monitored continuously to help the practice in taking the proper action needed to reduce such instances from happening again. By properly tracking denied claims and appealing for them, AR management helps a practice collect the maximum portion of accounts receivable. Successful accounts receivable management requires careful planning and the allocation of appropriate resources to achieve maximum performance.

Why consider an RCM service provider

Reducing AR days is crucial for the smooth functioning of your practice, but it can be a constant struggle for the dentists as well as the staff, because any error or negligence in AR management can result in poor cash flow and loss in revenue. Managing the various aspects of the revenue cycle, including Accounts receivable management, along with patient care can be a hectic task for the practice. Therefore, hiring an expert RCM service provider can be the perfect solution as they help your practice with managing the various AR-related processes thereby helping in decreasing the AR days and increasing the revenue of the practice. They provide you with expert professionals specializing in AR management and make sure that your practice is successful and equipped to treat more patients. They help your practice reduce its AR days by increasing the claim acceptance ratio. They help you do a proper follow-up on denied claims and resubmit them as soon as possible so that the chances of claims going unpaid can be reduced, thus reducing any loss in revenue due to claim denials. They make sure that payments are collected on time and do proper follow-ups on patient accounts. Thus, you don’t have to allot extra time or effort for any of these processes and can provide your full-on attention to other important needs of the dental practice, like improving patient care. It gives the practice the opportunity to focus more on patient care and its expansion while letting your dental RCM service provider handle all the complex and difficult tasks of revenue cycle management.

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