Incomplete primary payer amounts Pmts + Adjst + Pt. Resp must equal charges

Incomplete primary payer amounts Pmts + Adjst + Pt. Resp must equal charges

In order to coordinate two or more plans via an electronic claim, the primary payment must have transactions that list the patient's responsibility, how much the primary insurance allowed, and then any payments and adjustments. All these must balance to leave the remaining balance as the patient’s responsibility. On occasion, payments are saved without these required elements, and once the claim has been transferred to the secondary payer an internal scrubbing error occurs.  


When you apply a payment manually you would want to post a transaction to the claim with the amount of the Patient Responsibility (i.e. Copay/Deductible/Coinsurance/Patient Responsibility) so that whenever the claim is transferred to Patient or Secondary, that balance is transferred as well. If your payment batch was saved without the elements above and your claim was returned with the scrubbing error "Incomplete Primary Payer Amounts Pmts + Adjst + Pt. resp must equal charges for xxxxx," Best Practices is to add these transactions in the Payment Application > Batch (associated batch if not released) or > New.

Repeat for each CPT line in the claim before resubmitting it to the next payer.  Resubmit the claim.



    • Related Articles

    • Claim Scrubbing Errors

      Claim Scrubbing Errors When you release a claim, the ProviderSuite Claim Manager processes that claim to get it ready for transmission to the payer. During Claim Manager processing and before sending to the clearinghouse, the claim is "scrubbed" by ...
    • Edit Insurance Plan Payer ID

      1. Here are the steps to research payer ID numbers and payer information: Go To the Claims Tab >  EDI Portal Click on the Resources Tab Select Payer list Now click the Blue link "Professional Payer" or "Institutional Payer" if applicable Scroll down ...
    • EDI Claim Error-Pmts Adj Pt Resp Does Not Balance to Zero

      Reasons that Claims Don’t Balance Error Message Occurs The signs in the transactions (-) may be incorrect Must have patient responsibility lines  Adjustment Codes may not be mapped in the database to a CO 45 or PR code, will need to check with ...
    • Printing a Primary EOB

      One way to print a Primary EOB from the Billing Applet when an ERA was posted automatically. When you have the Secondary claim pulled up in the Billing Applet: Go to the Claim Transaction Detail Screen Single Click one of the transactions from the ...
    • How to Add a Payer for Paper Claims

      To add a payer for paper claims: Under the A/C#, go to the Insurance Tab and respective Insurance Type (Primary Insurance, Secondary Insurance) Use the Plan drop-down list to search for the plan and details, if already in your database. If the plan ...