Underpayment review
We compare each payment against your contracted fee schedule and flag shortfalls for reprocessing.
Service · Accounts receivable
Turn aging claims into collected revenue
Unpaid insurance claims rarely fix themselves. Our AR team works every open claim on a fixed cadence, escalates before deadlines, and shows you exactly where every dollar stands.
- Every open claim touched on a 14–30 day cadence
- Aged AR (90+ days) clean-up projects
- Underpayment and downgrade review on every EOB/ERA
Photo: RDNE Stock project / Pexels
The problem
Why dental AR ages
Insurance AR grows when claims go out and nobody follows them: claims lost between clearinghouse and payer, requests for information sitting in a portal inbox, underpayments posted without question, and appeals filed after the deadline.
The fix is not heroics — it is a cadence. Every open claim gets a next action and a date, and older buckets get worked first.
Days in ARAverage time from service to payment
% over 90Share of insurance AR aged past 90 days
Net collectionCollected vs. collectible after contractual adjustments
First-passClaims paid without rework
Aging buckets
How we work each bucket
| Bucket | What it means | Our action |
|---|---|---|
| 0–30 days | Normal processing window | Confirm payer receipt; resolve clearinghouse rejections the same day |
| 31–60 days | Possible missing info or pend | Status check via portal/277 response; supply attachments or narratives requested |
| 61–90 days | Something is wrong | Call the payer, document the reference number, correct and resubmit or start a reconsideration |
| 90+ days | High risk of loss | Escalate, appeal with documentation, or recommend write-off with an audit note — never silently |
Photo: Yan Krukau / PexelsBeyond follow-up
Recovering money already owed to you
Downgrade challenges
Alternate-benefit downgrades are appealed when documentation supports the procedure performed.
Deadline control
Timely-filing and appeal windows are tracked per payer so nothing ages out by accident.
Appeal packages
Level 1 and Level 2 appeals with narrative, X-rays, charting and the plan language that supports payment.
Root-cause loop
Recurring denial reasons feed back to front-desk and coding fixes so the same denial stops coming back.
Monthly reporting
Aging, collections and denial trends — plus the AR dashboard available on this site.
Common questions
AR management FAQ
Can you clean up old AR from before we started?
Yes. We usually start with a one-time aged-AR project, prioritizing high-value claims that are still within appeal or timely-filing windows.
Do you also handle patient balances?
Yes — see Patient Statements & Collections. Insurance AR and patient AR are reported separately so you can see both clearly.
How will we know what you did?
Every follow-up is noted on the claim in your PMS with date, payer reference number and next action, and summarized in a monthly report.
Why Dental Billing Community
Why dental practices choose us
Six reasons practices across the US hand us their revenue cycle.
01
Dental-first specialists
Our team works only in dental revenue cycle — CDT, dental plans, Medicaid dental and the payers your practice actually bills.
02
Dental and medical billing
We bill the medical plan when it should pay — oral surgery, trauma, biopsies, TMD and oral appliance therapy — with compliant cross-coding.
03
AI-assisted, human-checked
Automation speeds verification, scrubbing and follow-up; experienced billers review every exception.
04
Transparent results
Monthly KPI reviews plus live verification and AR dashboards. You always see where every claim stands.
05
HIPAA-first operations
BAA with every client, named logins, MFA where supported and minimum-necessary access.
06
One team, full cycle
Verification, coding, claims, AR, denials, posting, patient billing and credentialing — no hand-offs between vendors.
AR follow-up in DentalDoor
- Worklist by aging bucket, payer and next action
- Automatic claim status checks (276/277)
- Every call, reference number and note logged on the claim
Free billing assessment
See where your revenue is stuck — and how fast it can move.
Thirty minutes on a screen share. A written action plan afterward. No obligation.
Get the daily billing briefing
Coding changes, payer alerts and new case studies — straight to your inbox.
Join the communitySources & further reading
Educational content only — not legal, coding-certification or payer-specific advice. Code sets (CDT, CPT, ICD-10-CM, HCPCS) and payer policies change; always confirm against the current code manual and the patient's plan. CDT is © American Dental Association. CPT is © American Medical Association.