AR aging

An AR aging report takes the total accounts receivable balance and buckets it by age (typically current, 30, 60, 90 and 90-plus days), so a practice can see not just how much is owed, but how stale it is. A large current-and-30-day balance is normal churn; a large 90-plus bucket is money that is increasingly unlikely to ever be collected and needs a different kind of attention than a polite reminder.

The aging report is the tool that turns "we have some receivables" into a work list. Every practice management system generates it, and the discipline is simply running it weekly and actually working the oldest column first rather than the easiest one: a habit most offices know they should have and few maintain without someone assigned to own it.

Insurance and patient balances age differently and should be worked differently: an insurance claim sitting at 60 days is usually a phone call or a resubmission away from being resolved, while a patient balance at 90-plus days often needs a firmer financial-arrangements conversation before the next appointment is even scheduled. Left unmanaged, an aging AR is one of the quietest ways a practice's real collections ratio falls short of what production suggests it should be.