RevCycleJobs / RCM Roles / AR Follow-Up Specialist
A Day in the Life: AR Follow-Up Specialist
AR follow-up specialists are the relentless follow-through of revenue cycle. Once a claim is submitted, it's their job to make sure it gets paid — calling payers, tracking claim status, identifying and resolving the reasons a claim is stuck. In a high-volume hospital, there are thousands of open claims at any moment. AR is why the money actually comes in.
💰 Salary Ranges
| Level | Typical Annual Salary |
|---|
| AR Specialist I | $33K–$44K |
| Senior AR Specialist | $44K–$57K |
| AR Lead / Analyst | $57K–$72K |
| AR Manager | $72K–$95K |
📅 A Real Workday
Here's what a typical day actually looks like — not the job description version, the real version.
8:00 AM
Pull your AR worklist. Claims are sorted by payer, days in AR, and dollar amount. Priority: anything over 60 days old and over $1,000. Your daily target is 40–60 accounts worked.
8:30 AM
Work a batch of Medicare claims stuck in 'processing' status. Log in to the Medicare FISS portal, check claim status on each one. Most are fine. Three show a return to provider (RTP) — a simple coding error. Correct and resubmit.
9:30 AM
Call the Cigna provider line for a claim that's been in process for 45 days. On hold for 18 minutes. The rep tells you the claim was received but needs an itemized bill resubmit. Document the interaction, resubmit, note the expected reprocessing timeline.
11:00 AM
Work a batch of Medicaid claims with "additional information requested" status. Pull the clinical notes the state plan is asking for, create the appeal packet, fax it to the correct address (yes, Medicaid still accepts faxes).
12:30 PM
Identify a pattern: eight claims from the same physician are pending with Aetna for the same reason — a credentialing issue. Escalate to the credentialing team. You just saved the denial team eight separate cases.
2:00 PM
Work the zero-pay queue — claims where the payer responded but paid $0. Each one needs analysis: is this a valid contractual adjustment, an error, or an underpayment? Contractual adjustments get written off. The rest get worked.
3:30 PM
Prepare the weekly AR aging report. Your manager wants to see the over-90-day bucket by payer. You filter, sort, and add notes on the highest-balance accounts explaining where each one stands.
4:30 PM
End-of-day: update all account notes, confirm all resubmits went through the clearinghouse, flag three accounts for management review.
🛠 Tools You'll Use
Epic Resolute / Cerner Revenue CycleAvaility / Waystar (claim status)Medicare FISS / NGS portalsState Medicaid portalsCommercial payer portalsExcel (AR aging analysis)
✅ Skills That Matter
- Payer claim status research
- Denial vs. rejection identification
- Resubmission and appeal processing
- Phone follow-up with payers
- Medical terminology
- Attention to documentation detail
🎓 Certifications Worth Getting
CRCR
Certified Revenue Cycle Representative — the standard AR credential
CPC
Coding knowledge significantly improves AR work effectiveness
🚀 Career Path
1
AR Follow-Up Specialist
0–3 yrs
2
Senior AR Specialist
3–5 yrs
4
AR Supervisor / Manager
7–10 yrs
5
Revenue Cycle Director
10+ yrs
🤝 Who You Work With
Denial management (when claim status becomes a denial), coding (to resolve claim edit issues), patient billing (for patient responsibility questions), and credentialing (when AR issues trace back to enrollment problems).
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