We know what you’re thinking, “Not another meeting?!”

But yes, that’s what we’re here to talk about. Another meeting. Or, perhaps, how to make the most out of a meeting you already have – your monthly AR review meeting.

Monthly AR review meetings are critical to every skilled nursing facility, home health, or hospice organization’s financial operations. AR review meetings help your organization ensure that you collect the money you’re owed, efficiently utilize your staff, and prevent any recurring billing issues. These meetings are one of the best ways to ensure your AR strategy is quite literally paying off.

If you’ve ever led an AR review meeting, you know that it’s easy for these meetings to stall out and become unproductive. So, how do you keep your AR review meetings on track and productive? Here’s how to get started and six tips to help you lead a productive AR review meeting.

Setting up an AR Review Meeting

If your organization doesn’t currently have an AR review meeting or you’re ready to refresh your regular meeting, here are a few ways to get started:

  • Schedule your AR review meetings monthly to help ensure you’re making progress on unpaid claims and addressing recurring billing issues. 
  • Consider having your financial administrator or executive lead the meeting.
  • Include all billing managers and any staff responsible for your AR in the meeting.

Tips for Leading a Productive AR Review Meeting

Now that you have your meeting schedule and the right attendees, it’s time to lead a productive AR review meeting. When preparing and leading your AR review meeting, here are six tips to help ensure you have a constructive discussion.

1. Identify Significant Accounts.

If your allotted meeting time doesn’t allow you to review all aged accounts, prioritize the accounts based on timely filing requirements, what has rolled from 60 to 90 days, anything over 90 days, accounts larger than $1,000, or accounts older than 120 days. If possible, have your billing staff work on these accounts at least once before your meeting.

Keep in mind that the accounts that continuously roll may not be getting worked or might be getting resubmitted for processing without identifying the root cause of the denial. 

2. Have an Agenda and Planned Discussion Points.

A clear agenda is vital to ensure a constructive AR review meeting. The agenda should include reviewing your AR trends, an overview of your aging report, and the list of significant accounts that require review. 

Here are some suggested account details you should plan to discuss:

  • The reasons the account is outstanding
  • An update on the progress made on the account since last month’s meeting
  • Plan of action for receiving payment

3. Facilitate a Constructive Review.

The most productive AR review meetings result from extremely positive thinking regardless of the negative subject matter of aging AR. Work together as a team to stay on topic, guard against disruptions, facilitate a constructive review, and ensure a clearly identified action plan. 

It can also be helpful to drill into the root cause of unpaid claims instead of breezing through progress updates. Try asking specific questions about the data presented to determine the root cause of any issues. Here are some example questions you can try:

If payment has been received, why is there still a balance on the account?

Validate your payer contracts and ensure that the correct rates are billed.

What led to the facility writing off all or some of an account?

Understand why claims were not billed on time.

Why are there credit balances on an account?

Are there issues with coinsurance being booked to the wrong payer, cash posting errors, or problems with Medicaid not updating?

4. Create a Plan to Batch Work.

It may be impossible to work all of the necessary accounts. Instead, create a plan to only work on three to five accounts per week rather than trying to tackle the whole list. Working on a smaller list of accounts allows you to track incremental progress and delegate responsibilities.

5. Split Out the Remedial Work.

The action plan identified for your accounts can require a great deal of work. Try splitting out some of the more remedial work, such as checking a claim status or gathering medical records to other employees. This will free up your medical billers to focus on resolving the claim issues.

Should you need additional help, consider outsourcing your old AR collections to a medical billing company to help streamline your processes and improve your reimbursement.

6. Follow-up.

This last tip might seem like a no-brainer. But, regular follow-up ensures that any issues or roadblocks are addressed and allows key stakeholders to stay informed.

Alignment, Accountability, Action

An AR meeting that is consistent and structured will help you identify AR trends, delegate responsibilities, and prioritize work so that your team is efficiently tackling your aging AR. Now that you have prepared for a productive AR review meeting, you can collaborate as a team to collect what you’re owed as efficiently as possible. 

MCA – Helping Advance your Revenue Cycle Management

Our unique combination of highly-skilled billers, long-standing SNF, hospice, and home health billing experience, and our dedicated support team makes MCA a reliable partner to help support your most complicated claims. If you’re ready to gain more insight on AR best practices or you could use additional support, drop us a note or call us at 866-609-5880 to learn more about how MCA can help.

Together, we can pave a better financial future for your facility. 

About MCA Medical Billing Solutions

MCA is a full-service revenue cycle management company dedicated to helping skilled nursing facilities, home healthcare, and hospice organizations advance their revenue cycle management. We provide claims creation, submission, and follow-up to Medicare, Medicaid, and all commercial insurers.

When choosing MCA, you can expect experienced business insight, skilled billing intelligence, data extraction and management, and cloud-based documentation. MCA is here to help you streamline your revenue cycle process to produce consistent, high-quality outcomes. 

Does it feel like your SNF’s aging AR is unmanageable or trending that way? Do you feel like your team is working harder and receiving lower reimbursement?

Unfortunately, SNF aging AR collection is not getting any easier. There are changing government guidelines, increased numbers of residents requiring specialized care, and low reimbursement rates. 

On top of that, there is a good chance that after you’ve cared for your residents and their families, the billing process won’t go as smoothly as you’d like. Unless you have direct oversight of every step in your collections process. But who has the time and energy for that?!

So, it’s understandable that your aging AR has gotten out of hand. Or your days in AR are creeping up. 

But, there is some good news!

You can improve your AR collections and decrease your AR management costs! You can improve your reimbursement by streamlining your processes and putting a team of skilled medical billers to work. Bonus, you can recapture revenue that you previously had to write off.

SNF Aging AR Collections

Many SNFs get stuck untangling their AR aging report or are too busy to work on their aging accounts. They reach for the most straightforward solution…writing off their aging AR. 

With a strategic plan and support from an experienced medical billing company, you can get your aging AR cleaned up. Many SNFs will see an injection of cash and decrease days in AR in as little as 30 days. 

Discover How MCA Can Help

Outsourcing support to clean up your aging AR can provide you with the peace of mind that your business office is running like a well-oiled machine. When outsourcing your aging AR management to MCA, our skilled medical billers will review your AR and provide solutions to streamline your processes and improve reimbursement. 

By selecting MCA to manage your aging accounts receivable, you can expect:

A Methodical Evaluation of Your Current AR

When MCA takes on your aging AR collections, our first step is to complete a systematic review of your unresolved claims and a complete AR analysis. We work to identify every recoverable claim so that we can get to work on it.

And we mean every claim! Our goal is to find the most opportunities for reimbursement possible. Whether from high-dollar medical claims or more minor claims, they all add up for our customers. 

A Prioritized Plan to Optimize Recovery

MCA’s highly skilled medical billers establish a prioritized plan to ensure that we optimize your potential recovery from your aging AR. We ensure that all qualified claims are corrected and scheduled to pay before they reach “Timely Filing Limits”. 

Our proprietary AR management software, REVEX, allows us to manage, prioritize and delegate accounts to optimize your recovery. We can prioritize your AR by claim status, date of service, payor, and amount of urgency to ensure collection on all possible accounts. 

Successful Claims Correction and Resubmission

Our dedicated billers work to ensure that every claim is reviewed, corrected, and resubmitted when necessary. And we help to identify the reasons that may have caused your errors so that you can eliminate them in the future. 

But, we don’t stop there! After making any necessary corrections or clarifications, we work to appeal those claims with the insurance company or government payor to ensure revenue recovery. 

Aging AR Collections is One of Our Specialties

It’s a well-known fact that the longer a bill goes unpaid, the less likely you’ll be able to recover any revenue from it. Outstanding claims lead to a tremendous amount of lost revenue every year.

MCA’s dedicated team of skilled medical billers are exceptional at collecting on what others may consider uncollectible. But, rather than giving up on your aging AR, our team can help you take immediate action towards identifying, investigating, and resolving your unpaid claims. 

With help from MCA, you can stop stressing about your aging AR. You can decrease your write-offs and positively impact your SNF’s bottom line. 

Save Time and Increase Efficiency

You’ll no longer need to reactively chase outstanding payments and utilize valuable team members to manage your aging AR. Instead, you’ll be able to follow a streamlined plan that allows you to save time and increase the efficiency of your staff. 

Recapture Earned Revenue

Increase your cash flow and instantly become more profitable with an immediate reduction in aging AR.

Receive Cleaner and More Meaningful AR Reports

No more overwhelming, unmanageable AR reports. You’ll receive a clean, action-oriented AR report that will provide meaningful data to identify trends and concerns. 

Get a Proven Model That Works

Gain access to a team of experts who utilize a proven aging AR collection model that works. Don’t take our word for it. Take Chris, Diane, and Andrew, for example. 

MCA helped us collect $450K in old Medicare and Managed Care claims within the first 90 days of our engagement. Allowing us to reduce our days in AR by 7 days.

Chris from Manhattan

We had $425K in old Medicare, Managed Care, and Medicaid claims, and within our first 60 days of working with MCA, we collected our outstanding payments and reduced our days in AR by 5 days.

Diane from Washington DC

Within our first 60 days of working with MCA, we collected $300K in old Medicare and Medicaid claims allowing our internal billers to focus on our current claims. 

Andrew from Illinois

MCA – Expert Help to Collect On Your Aging AR

Our unique combination of highly-skilled billers, long-standing SNF billing experience, and proprietary technology makes MCA a reliable partner in recovering your aging AR. 

Together, we can pave a better financial future for your skilled nursing facility. 

Drop us a note or call us at 866-609-5880 to learn more about how MCA can help your skilled nursing facility clean up your aging AR.