Is there a medical billing company near me in Baltimore that specializes in behavioral health?

Yes. Maryland Medical Billers is a Baltimore-based medical billing company that specializes in behavioral health, mental health, and therapy practice billing for providers across the Baltimore metro area, surrounding Maryland counties, and Washington DC.

How much does a medical billing service cost for a small therapy practice?

Maryland Medical Billers uses a performance-based pricing model, charging 6% to 8% of monthly collections rather than a flat fee. This means the billing company is paid only when the practice gets paid.

What is the difference between provider credentialing and insurance credentialing?

Provider credentialing verifies a clinician's qualifications, such as licensure and education, with payers and institutions. Insurance credentialing is the process of enrolling a provider with specific insurance networks, including CAQH attestation and ePREP enrollment, so claims can be reimbursed under that network.

Can a medical billing company help reduce claim denials for mental health practices?

Yes. A dedicated denial management process identifies the root causes of rejected claims, such as timely filing errors or incomplete credentialing, and resubmits corrected claims to improve first-pass rates and recover outstanding accounts receivable.

Why should a Maryland therapy practice outsource billing instead of handling it in-house?

Outsourcing billing to a specialized firm like Maryland Medical Billers gives small and mid-sized practices access to expertise in payer-specific rules, such as Carelon Behavioral Health of Maryland requirements, without the overhead of hiring and training in-house billing staff.

Old AR Recovery Guide | Maryland Medical Billers | Baltimore MD

Every small practice has a number it does not like to look at too closely: the total sitting in old accounts receivable. Claims from six months ago, a year ago, sometimes longer, that never got resolved and quietly stopped being a priority. This is one of the most common situations practices bring to Maryland Medical Billers, and the good news is that a meaningful portion of old AR is still recoverable if it is approached methodically.

Why Old AR Builds Up in the First Place

Old accounts receivable rarely happens because of one big mistake. It builds gradually, usually because claims follow up gets deprioritized when staff are stretched thin. A denied claim sits for a few weeks waiting for someone to have time to correct it. Then a few weeks becomes a few months. Multiply that across dozens or hundreds of claims, and a practice ends up with a backlog that feels too large to tackle.

Step One: Get a Real Picture of What You Are Working With

Before doing anything else, pull a full aging report broken down by payer and by claim age. Claims under 30 days are a different problem than claims over 120 days, and treating them the same wastes effort. A proper billing audit at this stage tells you exactly how much is realistically recoverable versus how much has likely aged past the point where it can be collected.

Step Two: Separate Claims by Recoverability

Once you have the full picture, sort claims into three categories:

Claims still within timely filing limits that simply need correction and resubmission
Claims past timely filing limits where an appeal might still be possible depending on the payer
Claims that are no longer recoverable due to filing deadlines or payer specific rules

This sorting step alone often reveals that a smaller, more manageable portion of the total balance is realistically worth pursuing, which makes the recovery process feel far less overwhelming.

Step Three: Work the Recoverable Claims by Payer

Different payers have different processes for old claims, so working through them payer by payer tends to be more efficient than trying to fix everything at once in date order. Maryland Medicaid claims, commercial payer claims, and Medicare claims each have their own resubmission and appeal processes, and batching similar claims together speeds up the correction work.

Step Four: Correct the Root Cause, Not Just the Claim

If a batch of old claims is denied for the same reason, fix that reason before resubmitting, or the same claims will simply bounce back again. A common example is a batch of behavioral health claims denied for expired authorizations. Resubmitting without first confirming current authorization status just creates another round of denials.

Step Five: Set a System to Prevent the Backlog From Returning

Recovering old AR is only half the job. Without a system to keep claims follow up consistent going forward, the backlog tends to rebuild within a year. This usually means assigning clear ownership of claims follow up, setting a maximum age threshold before a claim gets escalated, and reviewing aging reports on a regular schedule rather than only when the problem feels urgent.

What This Looks Like for Behavioral Health and Mental Health Practices

Behavioral health and mental health practices in Baltimore City and Anne Arundel County often have a higher concentration of authorization related denials sitting in old AR, since these claims require more upfront tracking than general medical claims. Recovering this type of AR usually means confirming current authorization status for each patient before resubmitting, rather than assuming the original authorization is still valid.

How Maryland Medical Billers Approaches AR Cleanup

Billing cleanup and old AR recovery starts with a full audit of unpaid balances, sorted by age, payer, and likely cause of nonpayment. From there, the focus shifts to the claims that are genuinely recoverable, correcting the underlying issue, and resubmitting or appealing as appropriate. For practices in Montgomery County and across the Baltimore metro area, this kind of cleanup often recovers revenue the practice had mentally written off, even if it was never formally removed from the books.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you clean up old unpaid claims? Yes. Billing cleanup and old AR recovery can help practices review unpaid claims, aging balances, rejected claims, and unresolved payer issues to identify missed revenue opportunities.

How far back can old claims realistically be recovered? It depends on the payer’s timely filing rules and whether an appeal process is available. Claims well past those deadlines are usually not recoverable, which is why sorting claims by age early in the process matters.

Should I write off old claims instead of trying to recover them? Not before a proper review. Many practices assume old claims are a lost cause when a meaningful portion is still within an appealable window.

Do you offer full revenue cycle management or just AR cleanup? Maryland Medical Billers offers full revenue cycle management as well as targeted support for specific problems like old AR recovery, depending on what a practice needs.

What causes old AR to build up in the first place? It usually builds gradually when claims follow up is deprioritized due to limited staff time, allowing denied or unresolved claims to sit for months without action.

Who This Service Is For

Small medical practices
Mental health practices
Behavioral health providers
Therapists and counselors
Psychiatrists and psychiatric nurse practitioners
Group practices and expanding private practices

What We Provide

Medical billing and claims submission
Claims follow-up and denial management
Payment posting and AR follow-up
Insurance verification and eligibility checks
Provider credentialing and payer enrollment
Revenue cycle reporting and billing cleanup

Related Resources

Contact Us

Request a free medical billing consultation and find out where your practice may be losing revenue. Call (410) 874-0176 today.

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Maryland Medical Billers is a proud sponsor of community events throughout the state of Maryland. As your local medical billing specialists, we believe in giving back to the communities we serve, including Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Anne Arundel County, and Howard County, along with surrounding areas.

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From Baltimore summer festivals to local charity fundraisers, we actively support events that bring Maryland families together. Funding goes toward school programs, community celebrations, and neighborhood improvement initiatives that strengthen our region.

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Choosing Maryland Medical Billers for your billing needs means supporting a local business that reinvests in Maryland communities. Contact us today or call (410) 874-0176 to learn more about our expert medical billing services.