Aged claims don't recover themselves. Our specialists chase them until they do.
Every unresolved claim sitting past 30, 60, or 90 days is revenue your practice already earned but hasn't collected. Our AR follow-up team investigates the holdup on every aged claim, works it with the payer directly, and reports back on exactly what happened and why — so your billing doesn't stall out after submission.
What's included
A standard AR follow-up engagement covers:
- Aging bucket review (30 / 60 / 90 / 120+ days)
- Payer call & portal follow-up on stalled claims
- Root-cause tracking for every non-payment
- Corrected claim resubmission when needed
- Patient-responsibility balance follow-up
- Monthly AR aging report reviewed with your team
Why claims stall after they're submitted
Submitting a clean claim is only half the job. Behavioral health claims in particular run into problems that generic medical billing follow-up isn't built to catch: session-limit authorizations that expire mid-treatment, payer-specific documentation requirements for time-based CPT codes, and telehealth modifiers that get flagged inconsistently across payers.
Left alone, a stalled claim doesn't resolve itself — it ages. Once a claim passes the typical payer's timely-filing or appeal window, that revenue is gone for good. AR follow-up is the discipline of working every unpaid claim before that window closes, instead of discovering the loss months later in a write-off report.
This is a hands-on, claim-by-claim process. It isn't a report that gets generated and emailed — it's a person on the phone with the payer, reading the same explanation of benefits your front desk would be reading, and pushing the claim toward resolution.
How we work an aged claim, step by step
Every claim in your AR moves through the same disciplined sequence — nothing sits waiting for someone to notice it.
Age and prioritize
We pull your AR aging report and sort claims by dollar value and days outstanding, prioritizing the ones closest to a payer's timely-filing or appeal deadline first.
Investigate the hold-up
We contact the payer by phone or portal to get a specific reason for non-payment — not a generic status update, but the exact code or documentation issue holding the claim.
Correct and resubmit, or appeal
If the claim needs a correction — a modifier, a diagnosis pointer, missing authorization — we fix it and resubmit. If it was denied in error, we build the appeal with supporting documentation.
Track to resolution
The claim stays on our active follow-up list until it's paid, adjusted, or formally closed — it doesn't drop off after one phone call.
Report back
You receive a monthly AR aging summary showing what moved, what's still open, and why — in plain language your office manager can act on.
Common reasons behavioral health claims stall in AR
Not every unpaid claim fails for the same reason. Mental and behavioral health billing carries a few recurring issues that our follow-up team watches for specifically:
| Issue | What typically happens |
|---|---|
| Session limits & authorizations | Plans cap covered sessions per year; claims submitted after the cap or without a renewed authorization deny outright. |
| Time-based CPT coding | Codes like 90837 vs. 90834 are frequently downcoded or denied when session length isn't clearly documented. |
| Telehealth modifiers | Place-of-service and modifier requirements for virtual sessions still vary by payer and change without much notice. |
| Coordination of benefits | Claims deny when a payer believes another plan is primary, even if that information is outdated on their end. |
| Eligibility mismatches | Coverage that changed between the visit date and claim submission triggers a denial that requires manual correction. |
| Missing or incomplete documentation | Progress notes that don't clearly support medical necessity for the billed code lead to requests for records or denials. |
What our team actually does each week
Payer calls & portal checks
Direct contact with insurance representatives to get claim-specific answers instead of relying on generic denial codes alone.
Claim scrubbing & resubmission
Fixing coding, modifier, or authorization errors and getting corrected claims back into the payer's queue quickly.
Appeals & documentation
Building appeal letters with the clinical documentation needed to reverse an incorrect denial.
Patient balance follow-up
Clear, compliant statements and follow-up for patient-responsibility balances, coordinated with your front-office team.
Aging report reviews
A recurring, plain-language walkthrough of your AR aging buckets so you always know what's moving and what needs a decision from you.
Payer escalation path
For claims stuck beyond normal timelines, we escalate through provider relations rather than letting them sit in a queue indefinitely.
AR follow-up takes time most practices don't have to spare
Working an aged claim well means a phone call that can run 20–40 minutes with a payer, repeated across a claim list that keeps growing. For a small practice with one biller juggling scheduling, coding, and collections, follow-up is usually the first thing that gets postponed — which is exactly how claims slip past appeal deadlines.
Outsourcing this function doesn't replace your front-office team; it takes the time-intensive, repetitive part of billing off their plate so they can focus on patients and day-to-day operations, while a dedicated specialist keeps every claim moving.
A note on results
Recovery outcomes depend heavily on your payer mix, claim age at handoff, and documentation quality — we don't publish a single blanket percentage because it wouldn't be honest across every practice. During onboarding, we review your current AR aging and give you a realistic, claim-specific recovery estimate before any work begins.
How we handle your data
- Staff trained on HIPAA privacy and security requirements before touching any account
- Access to patient data limited to what's needed for the claim being worked
- Business Associate Agreement (BAA) executed with every practice we serve
- Encrypted transmission for any file or report shared with your team
- Documented audit trail for every claim touched during follow-up
Figures reflect our company's operating history, not a guarantee of results for any individual practice. [Replace with your verified, current figures before publishing.]
Frequently asked questions
What counts as an "aged" claim?
Most practices start actively following up once a claim passes 30 days without payment or a clear denial reason. By 60–90 days, a claim needs direct payer contact rather than a passive status check, since timely-filing and appeal deadlines are often within that window.
Do you take over our billing entirely, or just AR follow-up?
AR follow-up can run as a standalone service alongside your existing billing process, or as part of a full revenue cycle engagement that also covers eligibility, coding, and claim submission. We scope it to what your practice actually needs.
How do you report back on progress?
You receive a monthly AR aging report reviewed in plain language, plus real-time updates on any high-value or urgent claim. We also flag claims approaching an appeal deadline before they're lost.
Do you work with our existing EHR or billing software?
Our team works across the major behavioral health billing and EHR platforms. During onboarding, we confirm compatibility with your specific system before any claims are touched.
What happens to claims that are past the appeal deadline?
Once a claim is truly past a payer's appeal window, it's generally not recoverable — which is why our process prioritizes claims by how close they are to that deadline. Part of the value of ongoing follow-up is preventing claims from reaching that point in the first place.
Is patient data secure during this process?
Yes. We operate under signed Business Associate Agreements, restrict data access to what's needed for the claim being worked, and follow HIPAA security requirements for any data we handle or transmit.
Who wrote and reviewed this
Curious what's sitting in your AR right now?
Send us a current aging report and we'll walk you through what's realistically recoverable — no obligation, no generic sales pitch.