Days in AR Benchmark by Specialty (2026): Where Does Your Practice Stand?

Quick answer: a healthy medical practice keeps days in accounts receivable under 40. Top-performing practices run under 30. Once AR days drift past 50, money is aging toward write-offs, and past 90 days the collectability of a claim drops off a cliff. But "good" varies by specialty, because payer mix, claim complexity, and authorization burden differ enormously between, say, a therapy practice and a surgical group.

What Days in AR Actually Measures

Days in AR answers one question: on average, how long does it take your practice to turn a billed charge into cash? The formula is total accounts receivable divided by average daily charges. If you carry $120,000 in AR and bill $3,000 a day, you're at 40 days. We cover the formula and mechanics in depth in our days in AR explainer; this post is about where your number should be.

Enter your own numbers in the calculator at the bottom of this page to see exactly where you stand before reading the benchmarks.

Days in AR Benchmarks by Specialty (2026)

Typical ranges for well-run practices, based on industry benchmarking surveys and what we see across client specialties:

Specialty	Strong	Typical	Warning Zone
Primary care / family practice	Under 25	25-35	45+
Pediatrics	Under 25	25-35	45+
Mental / behavioral health	Under 28	28-40	50+
Physical therapy	Under 30	30-42	50+
Urgent care	Under 28	28-38	48+
Cardiology	Under 32	32-45	55+
Orthopedics / surgical	Under 35	35-48	58+
Pain management	Under 35	35-50	60+
Laboratories	Under 35	35-50	60+
Oncology	Under 35	35-50	60+

Why the spread? Three drivers:

• Authorization burden. Surgical, imaging-heavy, and oncology practices wait on prior auths and higher-scrutiny adjudication, which stretches the cycle even when billing is flawless.
• Payer mix. Medicare pays electronically in about 14 days; workers' comp, personal injury, and some Medicaid MCOs take 45 to 90. A chiropractor with heavy PI volume will run longer AR than one who is mostly commercial.
• Claim size and volume. High-volume, low-ticket specialties (primary care, urgent care, labs) should cycle fast; a few big delayed claims distort a surgical group's average much more.

The Aging Buckets Matter More Than the Average

Days in AR is an average, and averages hide problems. Two practices can both sit at 38 days while one has 8% of AR over 90 days and the other has 30%. The second practice is quietly accumulating write-offs. Alongside the headline number, watch:

• Percent of AR over 90 days: target under 12-15%. Claims that old collect at pennies on the dollar.
• Percent of AR over 120 days: target under 10%. Much of this bucket is already lost to timely-filing limits like CO 29 denials.

How to Bring AR Days Down

1. Verify eligibility before every visit. Coverage problems found at check-in are fixed in minutes; found at denial, they add 30 to 60 days to the cycle. Our eligibility verification service exists for exactly this.
2. Submit claims within 24 hours. Every day a charge sits unbilled is a day added to AR before the payer even sees it.
3. Work denials the week they arrive. Denials that sit in a queue expire. Systematic follow-up is the core of our AR management service.
4. Follow up on every claim over 30 days, prioritized by dollar value and timely-filing deadline, not by whatever is on top of the pile.
5. Collect patient responsibility at the point of service. Patient balances age worse than payer balances; the copay you collect at check-in never enters AR at all.

Check Your Number

Use the calculator below to compute your practice's days in AR and see which zone you land in. If you're over 45, or your over-90 bucket is above 15%, a billing audit will show you exactly where the cycle is leaking, free and without commitment.