Why You Need an Aging Report for a Home Health Agency

There is no avoiding that rejected claims can have a major impact on a home health agency’s overall success. You need to be sure that your billing team is keeping on top of this activity, and that is not always an easy thing to monitor. The critical tool here is keeping your accounts receivables (A/R) arranged into categories based on the time that they have remained unpaid. This is where the true importance of having an A/R aging report comes in. For optimal organization of your claims and outstanding payments, learning how to properly arrange an aging report will ensure that you receive all of the money that is owed to you.

An Aging Report’s Purpose and How To Use It

An aging report keeps track of claims based on the exact number of days they have been in receivables. A claim usually takes about a month to get paid. Having your claims laid out in this way allows you to pinpoint any potential issues with payment and where they might be coming from. This practice does not always come naturally because it can be quite tedious and is not exactly part of your human anatomy and physiology training. A few ways to make assembling the aging report easier are: Making it part of your routine. Working on the report on a consistent basis ensures that all missed claims are being watched and will eventually be taken care of. Keeping up with your claims keeps them from piling up and becoming difficult to evaluate. Keeping note of suspicious activity on claims. Being aware of potentially troublesome claims will allow you to reserve your attention and time for those that could actually end up harming you. Excluding the uncollectible claims. Keeping claims that cannot be collected in with the ones that will only make monitoring everything more confusing. All of your claims should be organized separately so you can maintain a watch on those that require it.

Data To Watch For and Potential Red Flags

When monitoring the aging report, the important information to look out for is: If a claim has not been paid within 45 days, it is possible that it was not paid or has been rejected. If this is the case, without any action taken by your company, it could simply remain unpaid. The responsibility falls on you to look into the issue and make sure that the claim is taken care of. If a claim ages over 90 days this is a major red flag and it is imperative that it is looked into. Unpaid claims could get in the way with an insurance companies’ ability to file deadlines in a timely fashion. Make sure to keep in mind that claims from automobile accidents, out-of-state insurance carriers and workers’ compensation tend to take longer. It is not a bad idea to keep these separate from your other claims with the awareness that they will have extended processing times.

Using Medical Billing Assistance

As you have probably already gathered, keeping track of your claims is a priority that you may not have the bandwidth for. You have other things you need to be focusing on, and monitoring your aging reports requires careful attention. With the use of a medical billing service, you can focus on your tasks with the utmost assurance that your outstanding claims are being handled. Precision Medical Billing is well versed in collecting payments from the various types of insurance out there, such as Medicare PPS or commercial and private insurance payers. You will be kept in the loop with daily billing reports, monthly overdue claims reports, and notifications when potentially troublesome claims have been resolved. Let the experts keep track of the aging reports, this way you can focus on the job you set out to do, giving your patients the care they deserve. For more information on medical billing, contact us here.