Charge Entry Lag Days

Lag days is an important metric used to measure the length of time it takes claims to get billed.  Traditionally, lag days (i.e., charge entry lag days) refer specifically to the number of days from the date of service to the date the claim is sent on to the payer.  This not only helps you to see how efficient your billing/charge capture system is, but will also let you know if certain providers take longer to complete their notes.  In additions to charge entry lag days, there are two other lag day metrics that are important. 

Payer Lag Days

Payer lag days is a metric that I track to see how long it takes to get a payment from the insurance company from the time it is billed.  This information is good to have, particularly if you want to measure the performance of your payers.  I’ve often time provided comparative data related to payer lag days to payers during contract negotiations.

Payment Entry Lag Days

Apart from charge entry lag days and payer lag days, I also like to look at the amount of time it takes for our billers to enter payments into the system after the payment has been received from the payer.  I refer to this as payment entry lag days.  It’s important that payment are entered into the PM system in a timely manner, as this moves the AR.  If there are delays in the payment entry process, accounts will never get moved to the next step in the billing cycle, thereby delaying statements, collections, appeals, etc. 

Take a look at the three examples below that show all three lag day metrics.  With common BI tools, these reports can be created so that the metrics can be viewed by payer, location, provider, etc.  You cold even group the payment entry and charge entry metrics by billing staff member, which would help in evaluating an individual’s performance.  The sum of all three lag day measures (i.e., charge entry lag days + payer lag days + payment entry lag days) can also shed some light on your revenue cycle efficiency.  While it won’t tell you how quickly you are collecting the entire amount due on the claim, it does give you a sense of how quickly you moving the claims.