The AR roll forward reports are designed to track balance-changing transactions (for both insurance and patient) and balance the AR. The purpose of this report is to prove that the AR is balanced.
We group the AR roll forward reports by provider and by payer so you can generate a report for each. Run an AR report to compare to the AR roll forward report. Run the AR report on the same day of close to match total AR balances.
- Transaction-based report
- Report Type: Accounts Receivable
- Report Name: AR Roll Forward by Payer or AR Roll Forward by Provider
Formulas
How to balance AR: Starting AR (SAR) + Change in AR (CAR) = Ending AR (EAR)
- Ending AR = Starting AR + Change in AR
- CAR = Charges – Total Payments – Adjustments – Write-offs
- True end of month AR = Ending AR – CAR of overlapping transactions
Definitions and Notes
- Starting AR: Ending AR from the previous month
- Ending AR: Total balance from charge ledger on the month end close date. Captured on the night of the selected close date each month.
- Balance-changing transactions: Includes charges, insurance payments, patient payments, adjustments, and write-offs. These represent the CAR.
- CAR events: Reported by ledger date in the closed month.
- Overpayments: Included in the report to track total applied payments. It is not included in the CAR calculation because it does not reduce the balance of the claim.
- Overlapping transactions: Subtracted from the Ending AR. Created from the start of the new month until the current month’s month end close date with a ledger date in the new month.
- AR Roll Forward reports contain data as of March 2016.
- The previous month is preselected by default in the report.
- From the menu bar, hover the cursor over Reports and then click Reports.
- For Report Type, select Accounts Receivable.
- For Report Name, select either AR Roll Forward by Payer or AR Roll Forward by Provider.
- Click Generate Report.
- An example of a report grouped by provider.
- The prior month is selected for the report date by default. If you want a different report date, select a different month (and year, if necessary) and click Generate Report.
- If there is no data, the report generates all zeros.
Using the last entry (Jack Johnson) as an example, to calculate the true end of month AR, we must first calculate the Ending AR.
- SAR = $86,528.74
- CAR = Charges ($1001.74) – Total Payments ($0) – Adjustments ($0) – Write-offs ($20) = $981.71
- EAR = SAR ($86,528.74) + CAR ($981.71) = $87,510.45
To calculate the true end of month AR, we need to calculate the CAR of April’s overlapping transactions. If the month end close date for April is May 5, we take all of the posted transactions from May 1 to May 5 that have a May ledger date. Remember that transactions that are posted in May do not necessarily have a May ledger date. Assuming that that following May ledger date transactions posted from May 1 through May 5, these are the overlapping transactions for April:
- Charges = $1000
- Total payments = $100
- Adjustments = $75
- Write-offs = $25
The CAR of April’s overlapping transactions = $1000 – $100 – $75 – $25 = $800.
The true end of month AR = Ending AR ($87,520.45) – CAR of overlapping transactions ($800) = $86,720.45