Skilled nursing facilities balance a lot each day. Resident care, staffing, admissions, compliance, and daily operations all pull at the same limited hours. With so much competing for attention, it’s easy for accounts receivable follow-up to sometimes get overlooked.
Regular aging review meetings are one of the most practical ways to stay ahead of receivables and keep cash flow healthy. These meetings give your team dedicated time to identify payment barriers, discuss outstanding balances, assign action items, and create accountability. When conducted consistently, they help turn the aging report from a static report into a management tool that moves claims and resident accounts toward resolution.
Key takeaway: The goal is not to review every balance in detail, but to help your team focus on the accounts that need action, remove barriers, and keep follow-up moving.
Why Are Aging Meetings Important?
Accounts receivable is more than a number on a report. Delayed reimbursement can affect cash flow, increase bad debt risk, and create unnecessary administrative work for the business office.
Effective aging meetings can help organizations:
- Improve cash flow
- Reduce outstanding receivables, including balances nearing timely filing limits
- Identify claim submission or payment issues earlier
- Address authorization and eligibility concerns
- Improve coordination between departments
- Increase accountability for follow-up activities
With a consistent process, your team can get ahead of receivables instead of reacting only after balances age or problems escalate.
Who Should Attend an Aging Meeting?
The most successful aging meetings involve team members who can actively move outstanding balances toward resolution. Typical participants include:
- Business office manager
- Billing specialist or accounts receivable representative
- Admissions director or case manager, when eligibility or authorization issues exist
- Minimum Data Set (MDS) coordinator, when clinical documentation affects billing
- Administrator, director of finance, and director of revenue cycle
- Third-party billing partner, if applicable
Bringing the right people to the table can help resolve issues in a timely manner and prevent action items from lingering between meetings.
What Should Be Reviewed During the Meeting?
Focus on balances that need action, rather than a line-by-line review of every outstanding account.
| Aging Category | Recommended Focus |
|---|---|
| 0-30 Days | Confirm claims have been submitted to the appropriate payor and accepted. |
| 31-60 Days | Identify claims awaiting payment and begin follow-up. |
| 61-90 Days | Escalate unresolved payor issues and obtain updates. |
| Over 90 Days | Create a resolution plan and assign ownership. |
For each balance reviewed, the team should identify:
- Current outstanding balance amount
- Responsible payor
- Last follow-up date
- Reason for non-payment
- Corrective action needed
- Person responsible for follow-up
Keep the discussion focused on solutions: what is preventing payment, who owns the next step, and when follow-up should occur.
What Questions Should Be Asked?
Having a standard set of questions can help guide discussion, improve efficiency, and drive accounts toward resolution. Consider asking:
- Was the claim successfully submitted?
- Has the claim been accepted by the payor?
- What is the claim status—pending, denied, or partially paid?
- Has the claim rejected previously rejected? If so, what was corrected before it was resubmitted?
- Are additional medical records needed?
- Is there an authorization issue?
- Has eligibility been verified?
- Is there resident responsibility that needs to be addressed?
Best Practices for a Successful Aging Meeting
- Meet consistently: Monthly aging meetings are generally most effective because they keep follow-up active without overwhelming the team.
- Focus on high-dollar and high-risk balances: Prioritize balances exceeding 60 days, high-dollar accounts, claims nearing timely filing limits, repeatedly denied claims, and balances requiring additional action.
- Assign clear action items: Each balance should leave the meeting with a specific next step, an assigned owner, and a target completion date.
- Track progress: Collection notes maintained within the billing system should serve as the primary and standard source of documentation. These notes provide a centralized record of follow-up efforts, outstanding issues, and collection activity, which helps keep accountability and continuity strong.
- Celebrate the wins: Aging meetings should not just focus on problems. Recognizing reductions in aged receivables and successful claim resolutions can help keep your team engaged and reinforce positive habits.
Stay Proactive, Improve Results
An effective aging meeting is one of the most valuable tools a skilled nursing facility can use to help manage accounts receivable and support overall financial performance. By bringing the right people together, focusing on actionable balances, and creating accountability for follow-up, facilities can improve collections, strengthen cash flow, and reduce financial risk.
A structured process helps reimbursement issues surface earlier, keeps ownership clear, and allows teams to stay focused on what matters most: providing exceptional care to residents.
How Forvis Mazars Can Help
Our Senior Living team works with skilled nursing and senior living providers to help improve revenue cycle performance, reduce aged accounts receivable, and strengthen billing and collections processes. Whether your organization needs support with aging reviews, billing follow-up, process improvement, or broader revenue cycle consulting, please reach out to a professional at Forvis Mazars today.