Most practices look at one number — how much came in this month — and stop there. But monthly deposits hide the story. These five metrics show you why the number is what it is, and where the next dollar is hiding. Track them monthly, trend them over time, and watch them by payer.
1. Days in A/R
What it is: the average number of days it takes to collect a dollar after the service is provided. Calculated as total accounts receivable divided by average daily charges.
Why it matters: it's your cash-flow speedometer. Rising A/R days mean money is sitting in your aging report instead of your bank account. It's also an early warning — A/R days climb before collections fall.
What good looks like: lower is better, and the target varies by specialty and payer mix. Just as important as the headline number is the aging breakdown — the share of A/R sitting past 90 and 120 days is where revenue actually dies.
2. Net collection rate
What it is: of the money you were allowed to collect (after contractual adjustments), how much you actually did. Payments divided by allowed amount, over a period.
Why it matters: this is the truest measure of billing performance. Unlike gross collection rate, it strips out contractual write-offs and shows what you're losing to denials, underpayments, timely-filing write-offs and bad debt. A high net collection rate means very little owed-and-collectible revenue is slipping away.
If you track only one metric, track net collection rate. It's the closest thing to a single grade for your entire revenue cycle.
3. Clean-claim rate
What it is: the percentage of claims that pass scrubbing and adjudicate correctly the first time, with no edits, rejections or rework.
Why it matters: it's the leading indicator for everything downstream. A high clean-claim rate means faster payment, fewer denials, and less staff time spent on rework. When this number rises, A/R days and denial rate improve on a lag.
4. First-pass resolution rate
What it is: the share of claims paid on the first submission, without needing an appeal, correction or resubmission.
Why it matters: every claim that doesn't resolve on the first pass costs staff time and delays cash. First-pass resolution captures the real efficiency of your front end and coding combined — and a low rate quietly inflates your cost of collections.
5. Denial rate
What it is: the percentage of claims denied on first submission, ideally broken out by reason code and payer.
Why it matters: denials are the most visible symptom of front-end and coding problems. But the headline rate isn't enough — the value is in the breakdown. A handful of reason codes usually drives most of your denials, and fixing those root causes is the highest-leverage work in the whole cycle.
What good looks like: industry first-pass denial rates are commonly cited around 10–12%; well-run practices push toward the low single digits by preventing denials, not just appealing them.
Deposits tell you what happened. These five tell you what to fix next.
The practices that win don't just measure these once — they trend them monthly and segment by payer to spot the one plan or one reason code dragging the average down. Our revenue cycle management service reports all five on standardized dashboards, and a free billing audit will show you where each of yours stands today.
Benchmark ranges are directional, drawn from publicly reported industry data, and vary by specialty, payer mix and source. Targets are not guarantees. Individual results vary.