CMS-1500 Claim Form PDF
Stedi automatically generates a CMS-1500 Claim Form PDF for each professional claim you submit.
We strongly recommend reviewing the following behavior and recommendations if you plan to send these PDFs to payers or retain them for your records.
Retrieve PDFs
You can download a PDF version of professional claims in the CMS-1500 format from both the timeline view and the claim's detail page.
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From the claims view, click a professional claim to open its timeline.
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Do one of the following:
- From the timeline view, hover over the claim and click Download CMS-1500 claim PDF.
- Open the claim's detail page and click Download CMS-1500 claim PDF.
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In the download menu, choose whether to Include CMS-1500 form background. This option is checked by default.
The National Uniform Claim Committee (NUCC) and CMS provide exact specifications for blank CMS-1500 forms, including paper size and ink color. Many provider offices are accustomed to using these pre-printed forms, and their Practice Management System (PMS) applications are designed to print claim data onto them. Generating PDFs with no background allows you to print the claim data directly onto official pre-printed forms.
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Click Confirm download. The PDF downloads to your computer.
Standard form size
The generated PDFs use the standard 8.5" x 11" format.
Edit PDFs
Single-page PDFs are editable so you can make any necessary adjustments before printing and sending them to payers. You can use any PDF editor to make changes to the generated CMS-1500 PDF.
Print PDFs
Note the following behavior and recommendations when printing CMS-1500 PDFs.
- We recommend generating PDFs with a white background (no red form overlay) if you plan to print them on pre-printed claim forms.
- The form boxes and labels must be printed in red ink and the item values must be printed in black ink for the claim form to be read by a scanner. Your vendor may choose not to process claim forms that don't conform to these specifications.
- Set the Page Size & Handling option to Actual size or the equivalent in your PDF reader application. The Fit option may cause the contents to be scaled down to fit within the printable area, causing the form fields to be misaligned when printed.
- Don't print forms from the Apple Preview app built in to macOS. There appear to be problems with field alignment and fonts. Instead, we recommend using either Adobe Acrobat or Google Chrome.
Printer models
We generally recommend using business laser printers to print CMS-1500 PDFs. However, due to mechanical variations between printer models, we can't guarantee that the generated PDFs will align perfectly with pre-printed forms. You should always test the alignment with your printer before using the generated PDFs for official submissions.
You may not get acceptable results when using inkjet printer models because the file contents can extend beyond the normal printable area. If you do plan to use an inkjet printer, don't enable a borderless option because this may cause the printer (or printer driver) to slightly magnify the page image regardless of other print settings. This behavior can crop form edges and cause form fields to appear in the wrong positions. Some inkjet printers have a manual setting to change the extension amount, but this isn't always available and may not give consistent results.