Your EHR system contains the data you need to catch revenue leaks before they become financial problems. But most healthcare organizations only pull reports sporadically, review them reactively, and miss the patterns that signal where revenue is slipping through the cracks.
Monthly reporting rhythms create accountability, reveal trends, and give leadership the visibility needed to make informed decisions. Let’s dive into some of the monthly reports great RCM teams should be running regularly, and why that data matters!
According to MGMA data, charge capture failures cost the average multi-provider practice between 1% and 5% of potential revenue. For a practice generating $3 million annually, that’s $30,000 to $150,000 in services rendered but never billed.
These failures accumulate gradually, and without regular reporting, small gaps compound into significant revenue loss before anyone notices. Monthly reviews help you create a baseline for your organization – after all, you can’t spot trends if you’re only looking at data occasionally.
Quick disclaimer: We won’t be listing all the specific reports for all the popular EHRs – software is constantly updating, and different specialties prefer different systems. Instead, we will describe the reports, the data they contain, and offer some of the most commonly used report names. Once you know what kind of data you’re looking for, finding (or building) that report in your own system becomes possible! Looking for custom reporting? Check out our billing department assessment services.
This report compares your schedule or appointment log to charges posted. Ideally, charges should be reconciled daily, or at least weekly, but a monthly review of your reconciliation patterns is an absolute must. Look for departments or providers who consistently show gaps between appointments and posted charges.
Most EHR systems can generate this by comparing scheduling data to billing data. Look for report names like “charge capture review,” “encounter reconciliation,” or “schedule vs. charges.”
This shows how long claims have been waiting for payment, broken down by time periods. Anything between a 30 and 45 day average in AR means claims are moving. More than 90 days is a red flag.
Pull this monthly and look at trends. Is your 90+ day bucket growing? Are specific payers consistently in older buckets? Breaking down AR aging by payer, provider, or service type helps you understand where your team is struggling the most and allows you to focus follow-up efforts where they’ll have the biggest impact.
This categorizes claim denials by payer-provided reason: missing information, authorization required, timely filing, coding errors, eligibility issues.
The value in this report is pattern recognition. Repeated denials for “missing prior authorization” signal a workflow problem. “Coding errors” for a particular CPT code indicate a training need. Review these reasons monthly and focus on your top three denial reasons by volume or dollar amount. Armed with this knowledge, your training will be laser-focused on the issues that are impacting your revenue right now.
Industry benchmark for this stat is above 96% which means 96% or more of your claims should be paid on first submission without edits or appeals.
If you notice a declining clean claim rate, it could indicate one or more upstream problems: registration data accuracy, coding quality, or charge entry completeness. If your rate drops below benchmark (or is not quite at the national benchmark yet), remember this statistic doesn’t live in a vacuum! Pull your denial report to identify what’s causing rejections. When you start examining how your reports work together, you begin to paint a full picture of your revenue cycle management.
Ideally, coding should happen withing a few days of service and billing should follow immediately. The DNFC and DNFB reports show you which accounts are sitting in limbo – services have been provided but coding has not been finalized, or coding is done but billing is stalled.
High DNFC indicates coding backlogs and high DNFB points to billing bottlenecks. Reviewing these reports monthly helps you keep your revenue cycle moving.
If you have never pulled a report before, your first few months establish your baseline. Don’t expect perfection right away – your goal is understanding where you are today so you can measure whether your future changes are working.
One month of elevated denials might be a fluke. Three consecutive months is a trend demanding attention. Monthly reporting reveals patterns invisible in quarterly reviews.
Someone needs to own each report. Charge reconciliation might belong to your billing manager. AR aging to your collections lead. Giving each report and its follow up some clear ownership builds in accountability which means your reports regularly get reviewed and improvements get implemented.
When you’re reviewing your data, make sure to share findings with teams who can fix them. If denial reports show eligibility issues, that’s a registration training need not a provider training issue. Monthly cross-functional check-ins keep everyone aligned, and communication channels opened.
Many healthcare organizations find that building consistent reporting rhythms and knowing what to do with the data is a consistent struggle. It’s not that the reports don’t exist; it’s that internal teams either don’t have time to analyze them thoughtfully or don’t have the expertise to interpret what story the numbers are telling.
This is where outsourcing revenue cycle management services can provide value that goes beyond just processing claims. When you work with an expert RCM team, they’re pulling these reports regularly, spotting patterns across your organization, and bringing their insights about what’s normal versus what indicates a problem worth investigating directly to your leadership.
An experienced RCM company can help you understand which metrics to prioritize for your specific payer mix, specialty, and patient population. They can benchmark your performance against similar organizations and identify opportunities you might not see when you’re focused on daily operations. If that sounds like something your organization needs (even if it’s just for one of your programs or services) we’d love to connect!
Start simple. Pick three reports from this list and commit to reviewing them on the same day each month. First Monday of the month, last Friday, whatever works for your schedule – as long as it is consistent.
Block 30 minutes on your calendar, pull the reports, note any significant changes from last month, and identify one action item to address. Don’t try to fix everything at once. Focus on the highest-impact opportunity each month and start there.
As the rhythm becomes routine, you can expand to additional reports or deeper analysis. Your goal with great reporting is to build visibility. When you know where your revenue leaks are, you can plug them. By monitoring trends consistently, your team can address small problems before they become big financial losses.
Your EHR might already have most of these reports built in, and learning how to run them and read them regularly arms you with the knowledge you need to protect your revenue. Monthly reporting turns your data into actionable intelligence that keeps your revenue cycle healthy and your organization financially stable.
