Claim edit: Negative line item charge amount

Stedi now rejects 837P professional, 837D dental, and 837I institutional claims that include a negative line item charge amount for a service line.

How the edit works

In a claim, a service line represents billing for a specific service, such as an office visit or X-ray.

A line item charge amount is what the provider billed for a single service.

If a service line's line item charge amount is below zero, the payer may reject the claim.

This edit catches the issue before the claim reaches the payer. It prevents payer rejections, which are slower and delay payment for the provider.

Rejection errors

If you submit a claim using Stedi's 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 line charge amount. Submitted value -50.00 on line 1 must be zero or greater. Negative values are not allowed. Correct and resubmit.",
      "followupAction": "Please Correct and Resubmit"
    }
  ]
}

{
  "errors": [
    {
      "code": "33",
      "description": "Invalid line charge amount. Submitted value -50.00 on line 1 must be zero or greater. Negative values are not allowed. Correct and resubmit.",
      "followupAction": "Please Correct and Resubmit"
    }
  ]
}

{
  "errors": [
    {
      "code": "33",
      "description": "Invalid line charge amount. Submitted value -50.00 on line 1 must be zero or greater. Negative values are not allowed. 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>583*[DATE]*U*[AMOUNT]******A7>732**Invalid line charge amount. Submitted value -50.00 on line 1 must be zero or greater. Negative values are not allowed. Correct and resubmit

STC*A7>583*[DATE]*U*[AMOUNT]******A7>732**Invalid line charge amount. Submitted value -50.00 on line 1 must be zero or greater. Negative values are not allowed. Correct and resubmit

STC*A7>583*[DATE]*U*[AMOUNT]******A7>732**Invalid line charge amount. Submitted value -50.00 on line 1 must be zero or greater. Negative values are not allowed. Correct and resubmit

Resolution tips

Billers usually add negative line item charge amounts when attempting to:

• Reverse a charge. Instead, submit a void or replacement claim.
  
  

• Adjust for deductibles or contracted rates. Avoid doing this. Payers apply these automatically and report the adjustments in the 835 Electronic Remittance Advice (ERA).