What Is AR in ABA Billing? A Simple Guide for BCBAs

If you've ever asked your billing team "how much are we owed?" and gotten a vague answer, you've already met your AR problem.

AR — accounts receivable — is the total dollar amount of submitted claims that haven't been paid yet. It's not revenue you've earned. It's revenue you're still waiting on.

AR aging buckets

Most billing systems group AR into buckets by how long the claim has been outstanding:

• 0–30 days: normal, in process
• 31–60 days: payer is slow but recoverable
• 61–90 days: needs active follow-up
• 90+ days: at risk of becoming uncollectible

A healthy ABA practice keeps most AR under 60 days. When you see a lot of money sitting in 90+, it usually means claims are being submitted but no one is following up when payers stall.

What "good" looks like

There's no perfect number, but rough benchmarks for ABA:

• 60%+ of AR under 30 days
• Less than 15% over 90 days
• Average days in AR under 40

If you don't know your numbers, that's the first sign something is off. A weekly AR report is a basic deliverable — not an upgrade.

When AR balloons

AR usually grows for one of three reasons: claims aren't being submitted on time, denials aren't being worked, or follow-up calls aren't happening. Each one has a different fix, but they all start the same way: pull the aging report and look at what's stuck and why.

You can't fix what you can't see. The first job of any billing partner is to make your AR visible.