Long Term Care Accounts Receivable Aging Review

It covers the monthly review of resident and payer balances by aging bucket, payer category, and collection status. The checklist is built to surface overdue accounts, identify blocking issues such as missing documentation or denied claims, and separate normal follow-up from write-off recommendations. It is meant for finance and billing teams that need a repeatable review process, not a one-time cleanup.

This template is designed for a monthly recurrence, which is usually the right cadence for AR aging in long-term care. Monthly review gives the team enough time to see meaningful movement while still catching delinquent balances before they age further. If your facility has high claim volume or frequent payer denials, you can add a weekly exception review for critical accounts.

The DRI is typically the billing manager, revenue cycle lead, or finance manager, with input from collections, admissions, and clinical documentation staff when balances are blocked by non-financial issues. The person running the review should be able to assign follow-up tasks and confirm whether an account is collectible, disputed, or ready for write-off consideration. For larger facilities, a controller or regional finance lead may approve the final recommendations.

Yes, but the payer mix and follow-up logic should be adjusted to match the facility type. Skilled nursing often needs tighter attention to Medicare, Medicaid, and managed care denials, while assisted living may focus more on resident self-pay and family billing. The template works best when you customize the payer categories, aging thresholds, and escalation paths to your actual revenue model.

A common mistake is treating every overdue balance the same, which hides the difference between a simple follow-up item and a blocked account that needs action from another department. Another pitfall is skipping verification steps, such as confirming claim status, authorization, or resident responsibility before recommending write-off. The checklist also helps avoid priority inflation by keeping only true compliance or cash-risk items marked critical.

Ad-hoc follow-up usually depends on whoever notices a problem first, which makes aging review inconsistent and easy to miss. This template creates a standard monthly workflow with clear checklist items, a defined review order, and explicit outcomes such as collection action, escalation, or write-off recommendation. That makes it easier to track ownership, compare periods, and keep overdue balances from drifting.

Yes. It works well alongside AR aging reports exported from your billing system, ERP, or resident accounting platform. Teams often use the checklist to review the report, then create follow-up tasks in their finance workflow tool for each blocking issue, disputed account, or collection call. The template does not replace the source system; it standardizes the review process around it.

Customize the payer categories, aging buckets, approval thresholds, and escalation owners so they match your facility and payer contracts. You should also define what counts as blocking versus non-blocking, when an account moves to write-off review, and which verification step is required before closure. If you operate multiple sites, add site-level filters so each DRI only reviews the accounts they own.