Claim edit: Colon in a field value
Stedi now rejects 837P professional, 837D dental, and 837I institutional claims with a colon (:) in a field value.
How the edit works
X12 standards use delimiters – reserved characters that mark the boundaries between segments, elements, and components. Some payers and clearinghouses use the colon as a delimiter when they write claims.
Stedi checks name, address, and other text fields for a colon. If a field value contains one, the payer may reject the claim.
This edit catches the issue before the claim reaches the payer. It prevents payer rejections, which take longer to resolve and delay payment for the provider.
Rejection errors
How you get the error depends on how you submit the claim.
If you submit a claim using the Create Professional Claim (CMS-1500) JSON endpoint and the claim fails the edit, you'll get back a 201 response with an errors array in real time:
{
"errors": [
{
"description": "Invalid character. The Subscriber First Name (2010BA/NM1-04) contains a reserved X12 delimiter character (colon). Correct and resubmit."
}
]
}If you submit a claim using Stedi's other Claim Submission API endpoints and the claim fails the edit, you'll get back an error response in real time. The response includes details in the errors array:
{
"errors": [
{
"code": "33",
"description": "Invalid character. The Subscriber First Name (2010BA/NM1-04) contains a reserved X12 delimiter character (colon). Correct and resubmit.",
"followupAction": "Please Correct and Resubmit"
}
]
}If you submit a claim using SFTP and the claim fails the edit, Stedi will reject the claim with a 277CA claim acknowledgment. The acknowledgment will include a related claim status category code, claim status code, entity identifier code, and error message.
STC*A7>481>HK*[DATE]*U*[AMOUNT]********Invalid character. The Subscriber First Name (2010BA/NM1-04) contains a reserved X12 delimiter character (colon). Correct and resubmit.~Related claim edits
Stedi also rejects claims with an asterisk (*), greater-than sign (>), caret (^), grave accent (`), or tilde (~) in a field value. See Claim edit: Reserved X12 delimiter in a field value.