Days in A/R calculator for NEMT: how long your money takes to arrive
Days in A/R is what payers owe you divided by what you bill in an average day. Total the claims and invoices you sent over the last 30, 60, or 90 days, divide by the days in that window, then divide your current receivables by the result. Each day above your target is one more day of billing you have not collected.
On this page
The numbers filled in are examples, not averages. Replace each one with your own quotes, rates, and costs.
Days in A/R
Example numbersDays in A/R
36 days
$54,000 owed against $1,500 billed a day.
- Cash above your 30-day target
- $9,000
- Each day you cut frees
- $1,500
Behind the number
- Average billed per day$135,000 over 90 days
- $1,500
- Owed for more than 90 days10% of receivables
- $5,400
- Days in A/R without the over-90 balances
- 32.4 days
- Days above your target
- 6 days
Balances past 90 days add 3.6 days to your figure. Work through them payer by payer, starting with the largest.
What the calculator measures
Days in A/R answers one question: how many days of work are sitting unpaid right now. It turns a dollar balance into time, which makes it comparable across months even as the business grows.
Days in A/R = receivables owed now ÷ average billed per day
Average billed per day is the total of claims and invoices sent in a recent window, divided by the days in that window. The calculator also asks for two more numbers. The share of receivables older than 90 days shows how much of the figure comes from old, stuck balances. A target turns the result into dollars: the cash that would be in your bank if you were at the target today.
Pulling the inputs from your books
- Receivables owed now. Everything you have earned and not been paid for, from every payer: brokers, the state, health plans, private-pay riders, and facilities. Start from your accounts receivable aging report, then add trips already driven but not billed yet, at the amount you expect. Leaving them out hides slow billing, the one delay entirely in your own hands.
- Share owed for more than 90 days. The over-90 column of the aging report as a share of the receivables above.
- Amount billed and days in the period. Add up every claim and invoice sent in the last 30, 60, or 90 days, at the amount you expect to be paid. If a payer always pays less than your billed charge, use its allowed amounts, or the result will overstate what you are owed.
- Target days. See the section on setting a target below.
Use the same window each month. A growing fleet shows the difference clearly. Say billing ran $38,000, $45,000, and $52,000 over the last three months. The 90-day window averages $1,500 a day and gives 36 days on a $54,000 balance. The last 30 days alone average $1,733 a day and give about 31 days. Neither is wrong, but switching between them hides the trend.
Reading the result
The headline is your days in A/R, with the balance and daily billing behind it.
- Cash above your target is the part of the balance you would already hold if you were at the target. It is the payoff of getting there.
- Each day you cut frees one day of average billing. At $1,500 a day, trimming three days puts $4,500 back in the account for good, as long as billing holds steady.
- Owed for more than 90 days puts a dollar figure on the old balances, and days in A/R without the over-90 balances shows what your figure would be if they were cleared.
- A warning appears whenever old balances are adding days to your figure.
Worked example
The default inputs are examples, not a benchmark. A provider is owed $54,000 today. It billed $135,000 over the last 90 days, 10 percent of what it is owed is past 90 days, and it aims for 30 days.
| Step | Math | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Average billed per day | $135,000 ÷ 90 | $1,500 |
| Days in A/R | $54,000 ÷ $1,500 | 36 days |
| Days above the 30-day target | 36 - 30 | 6 days |
| Cash above the target | 6 x $1,500 | $9,000 |
| Owed for more than 90 days | 10% of $54,000 | $5,400 |
| Days in A/R without those balances | $48,600 ÷ $1,500 | 32.4 days |
The old balances account for 3.6 of the 36 days. Collect $9,000 of what is owed without any new billing, and the balance drops to $45,000, which is exactly 30 days.
Setting a target from your payers
A good target comes from the promises in your contracts, not from a number someone else uses. Each payer’s expected figure is roughly the days you take to bill plus the days it takes to pay.
| Payer | Promised payment time | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| MTM (standard provider agreement) | Pays uncontested invoices no later than 30 days after online submission. Late claims are ineligible: the limit is 90 days from the ride, or whatever limit MTM’s client sets | MTM Transportation Provider Services Agreement, section 6.A |
| Medicaid fee-for-service (paid by the state) | Clean practitioner claims: nine in ten paid by day 30 after receipt, 99 in 100 by day 90. Anything else: 12 months after receipt at most | 42 CFR 447.45(d) |
| Medicaid health plans | Same practitioner tier, unless plan and provider agree in writing on a different timetable | 42 CFR 447.46 |
| Facilities and private riders | Whatever your invoice terms say | Your invoice |
Check your own contracts, since state programs and brokers publish their own pay cycles. The guide to Medicaid payment timelines walks through several of them. Then weight each payer by its share of your billing. For example, a provider that bills twice a week, mostly to a broker paying within 30 days, can reasonably aim for the low to mid 30s.
Where the extra days come from
- Slow billing. Every day between the ride and the claim adds a day to A/R. Bill on a fixed schedule, daily or twice a week.
- Claims that bounce. A claim with a missing or wrong trip detail does not count as a clean claim. Payment deadlines only run on clean claims, so the wait starts over once it is fixed and resent.
- Payers running late. When a payer drifts past its own terms, follow up in writing. The guide to late broker payments covers the steps.
- Payments nobody matched. Money that arrived but was never applied leaves invoices looking open and inflates the figure.
Cutting days frees cash without borrowing. That matters most for money the state Medicaid agency owes you, because federal rules keep those payments away from factors. The factoring guide sorts out which receivables can be sold, and NEMT cash flow covers bridging the gap while you work the number down.
Knowing who still owes you
HealthRide builds invoices from the trips you completed, each priced from that payer’s rates. Pay-link and card payments, along with the checks, broker payments, and insurance payments you record, land in one list, so the open balances you enter here are one screen away. The invoicing page shows how billing works.
Frequently asked questions
- Which formula gives days in A/R?
- Days in A/R = receivables owed now ÷ average billed per day, where average billed per day is the total billed in a recent window divided by the days in that window. With $54,000 owed and $135,000 billed over 90 days, you bill $1,500 a day on average, and $54,000 ÷ $1,500 is 36 days. Some guides call the same measure days sales outstanding.
- Should I use 30, 60, or 90 days of billing?
- Pick one and stick with it, so this month compares with last month. A 90-day window smooths out holidays and one-off weeks. A 30-day window reacts faster. When billing is growing, a longer window averages in older, smaller months, which lowers the daily figure and makes days in A/R look higher than a 30-day window would show.
- How do I set a target for days in A/R?
- Build it from your payers. For each one, add the days you usually take to bill a trip to the days the payer promises to pay. MTM's standard provider agreement, for example, pays uncontested invoices no later than 30 days after they are submitted online, so a trip billed 5 days after the ride should be paid within about 35 days. Weight each payer by its share of your billing.
- Why do balances over 90 days matter so much?
- An old balance often means a claim was denied, rejected, or never reached the payer, and while it sits, the filing deadline keeps running. MTM's standard agreement treats a claim as ineligible once 90 days have passed since the ride, or once a different limit set by its client runs out. For fee-for-service Medicaid, federal rules cap the state's filing window at a year after the ride.
- What payment deadlines does federal Medicaid law set?
- The federal rule sets two tiers. The state must pay nine in ten clean practitioner claims no later than 30 days after it receives them, and 99 in 100 by day 90. Other claims have only an outer federal limit: 12 months after the state receives them. Medicaid health plan contracts must carry the practitioner tier, though a plan and its providers can set another schedule by mutual agreement, written into their contract.
- Can factoring shorten the wait on Medicaid money?
- Only for part of it. Federal Medicaid rules bar the state from paying your claims to or through a factor, meaning a company that advances cash against receivables you have sold or assigned to it and keeps a fee or a slice of the collections. Broker payments can be assigned only as your broker contract allows. MTM's standard agreement, for example, asks for 30 days' written notice before any payment you have assigned.
