Submit Claims
Follow one of the procedures below to prepare and send claims to insurance companies and other payers.
Submit Claims in PCC EHR: After the January 2023 release of PCC 9.5, your practice can submit claims from PCC EHR or from your Practice Management window. Switching back and forth between the tools can result in incomplete logs and other problems. For best results, choose one tool.
Video: Watch Submit Claims to learn more.
Contents
Submit Claims in PCC EHR
When you are ready to process claims and submit them to payers, use the Claims tool in PCC EHR.
Open Claims
Open the Claims tool from the Tools menu in PCC EHR.


One Authorized User at a Time: The Claims tool can only be opened by authorized users, and only one user at your practice can open the tool at a time.
Click “Prepare Claims”
Click “Prepare Claims” to begin preparing your claims.


Your PCC system will review all charges that are ready to be turned into a claim.
What Makes a Charge Ready to Be Turned Into a Claim?: Encounter charges are ready to be turned into a claim as soon as you post them into PCC’s system. You also make charges ready when you select “Generate a Claim” from the Correct Mistakes (oops
) screen, which you would do (for example) after you change the responsible party for charges.
Claim Scrubbing and Preparation: As your PCC system reviews charges and prepares outgoing claims, it removes duplicates; verifies patient, charge, and payer information; and checks over other details, such as whether CPT codes are valid for a given date of service. Next, it determines which payer or clearinghouse-specific configuration will be used to format the claim.
Review Claim Processing Results
When it finishes preparing, the Claims tool displays three sections that show you how many claims will not be submitted, are ready to submit, and will be routed to paper.
Use the reference below to learn more about each of these totals.
-
Will not be submitted:
-
Delayed: Claims delayed due to your practice’s claim delay setting, usually a few days. PCC Support can customize your claim delay period for you.
-
Held: Claims that were identified and prepared, but then held due to a Claim Hold.
-
Need Corrections: Claims that were prepared and found to contain one or more problems that prevent the claim from being submitted. These claims will not leave your system until you correct the problems.
-
-
Electronic claim batches prepared to submit:
- Claims that were prepared and are now ready to be submitted electronically. Claims are grouped into batches, and by default “All Claims” will be selected. (See the next step for more information.)
-
Claims to be routed to paper:
- Claims that were prepared and will be moved over to a paper holding batch when you click “Submit Claims”. These claims can later be printed from the Partner
hcfa
program.
- Claims that were prepared and will be moved over to a paper holding batch when you click “Submit Claims”. These claims can later be printed from the Partner
Optional: Select Specific “Batches” to Submit
If your practice divides up billing responsibility by payer, or you have another less common workflow need, you might wish to submit only a portion of the prepared claims.
Click Edit, and then select which batches you wish to submit.


What is a Batch?: A batch represents an under-the-hood custom claim configuration on your PCC system. All the claims in a batch use the same claim configuration, so a batch might be named for a large group of payers. If your practice has an unusual claim configuration need, PCC’s EDI configuration specialists sometimes create a custom batch. Your list of batches may also reflect claim clearinghouses or other entities.
Click “Submit Claims” and Confirm
When you are ready to send the prepared claims, click “Submit Claims”. Then click “Submit Claims” again to verify and proceed.



Submitting claims can take several minutes, especially when you have a large number of claims, as PCC re-verifies claim information.
Review Results
When claim submission is finished, you can review how many claims were submitted and routed to paper.
Click “Close” to close the window.
Additional Prepared Claims: If you prepared claims and then only selected and submitted certain claim batches, you can now select additional batches and submit them.
Print Paper Claims
If some claims need to be printed, they will be “routed to paper”. Use the hcfa
program in your Practice Management windows to print paper claims.
Follow Up on Claims that Need Corrections
If a claim can not be submitted, you can find an explanation of the problem on the Need Corrections tab. See the sections below to learn more.
You can also find these claims in the “Bad Claim Report” in the EDI Reports (ecsreports
) tool. Or, you can use the SRS “Claim Error Report” to track down both claims that could not be submitted and claim rejections.
These claim errors (that “Need Corrections”) must be resolved before the claim can go out. For example, you may need to update patient, account, or charge information. As no claim has gone out yet, you do not need to file a “Corrected Claim” or include a payer claim control number. You can fix the problems and then return to the Claims tool to prepare and submit claims again.
Optional: Review Log
When you are finished submitting claims, you can use the Log tab to review the record of what occurred during claim processing.
Work on Claims that Cannot Be Submitted
When you submit claims, PCC processes all queued claims waiting on your system and checks for errors. If a claim is missing an insurance ID number or the claim’s policy isn’t active for the date of service, for example, PCC will hold back the claim.
You can review claims with these issues on the “Need Corrections” tab in the Claims tool.


For each claim, you can review the patient, the date of service, the insurance plan, and the reason the claim could not be submitted. You can use the Search Filter field to find specific claims or issues affecting multiple claims.
Use tools in PCC EHR and Practice Management to correct these claim problems. Read Claim Error Reference to learn about each possible claim processing error and how to fix it.
Reprocess and Submit
After you fix claims found on the Need Corrections tab, you can reprocess and submit claims on the Submission tab. Clean claims will be processed and sent, and the Needs Correction tab will refresh with any new issues that need your attention.
Delete a Claim
If you fix an issue and need to generate a new claim for an encounter, you may need to delete the old claim. For example, if you need to generate a claim for a different insurance policy, you can select the old claim from the Needs Correction tab and click “Delete Claim”.


Deleting a claim on the Needs Correction tab will only remove the claim. The charges will remain on the account.
Where Do I Change the Responsible Party for Charges and Generate a New Claim?: If a claim is pending the wrong insurance policy, you can use the Correct Mistakes (oops
) tool to change the responsible party for the charges and then queue up a new claim. See Change the Responsible Party and Copay for Charges.
Review Claim Submission Session Logs
When you use PCC EHR to submit claims, you can use the “Log” tab in the Claims tool to review the details of a claim submission. You can also review which claims were held, delayed, needed corrections, or were routed to paper.


The Log tab displays a record of all claim submissions run from PCC EHR, filtered by year. In addition to date and time, you can see which user at your practice processed the claims and how many claims were held, delayed, needed corrections, were routed to paper, and were submitted. If only some batches were submitted, you can see how many under the Batches column.
Where's My Log?: The Log tab displays claim submission sessions submitted from PCC EHR. If you prepare claims but do not submit, the Claims tool will not add a record to the Log tab. Also, if your practice sometimes uses the previous Practice Management tool to process and submit claims, those submissions will not appear in the logs.
Double-click on a session log to see more information.


On the “Claims – Submission Session Log – View” screen, you can review details about each claim that was processed during the claim submission. If the user prepared and submitted multiple batches during the same session, they can use the drop-down menu in the upper-left to select and review each submission.
Use the Search Filter to find claims by name, date of service, insurance plan, batch, or claim ID.
Review Held Claims
To see details about all claims held due to a claim hold, select “Held” in the session drop-down menu.


Your practice can configure custom claim holds based on dates of service, billing providers, and insurance plans.
Review Delayed Claims
If your practice uses a customizable claim delay, select “Delayed” from the session drop-down menu to see claims that were delayed.


You can review the details of claims that didn’t go out because the claim delay period had not yet passed. The claim delay period is displayed in the upper-right corner. Typically, practices ask PCC Support to configure a claim delay period of a few days, in order to ensure enough time has passed for charges to be reviewed before claim submission.
Review Claims that Need Corrections and Can Not Be Submitted
If PCC’s claim processing found problems with claims that prevented them from being submitted, you can review these issues by selecting the Needed Corrections option.


You can see claim details and the “Reason” that a claim could not be submitted. You can find this same information in the “Bad Claim Report” in the EDI Reports (ecsreports
) tool. See Work on Claim Errors and Rejections and Claim Error Reference.
These issues must be resolved before the claim can go out. For most problems with an outgoing claim, you will need to update patient, account, or charge information. If this alters the responsible party for the encounter, you will need to edit the insurance information for the charges and regenerate the claim in the Correct Mistakes (oops
) program.
As no claim has gone out yet, you do not need to file a “Corrected Claim” or include a payer claim control number. You can fix the problems and then return to the Claims tool to prepare and submit the remaining claims. If a claim pended the wrong insurance plan, you will need to generate a new claim (see above).
Review Claims Routed to Paper
If some claims needed to be routed to a paper batch for printing, you can select “Routed to Paper” to review details.


To generate and print paper claims, use the HCFA Form Generation program in your Practice Management windows.
Submit Claims in the Partner Practice Management Windows
PCC currently maintains its previous claims submission tool, found in your Practice Management windows. Read the procedure below to learn how to submit claims from the older tool.
Run Prepare/Submit Electronic Claims (preptags/ECS
)
You can find Prepare/Submit Electronic Claims (preptags/ECS
) in the Electronic Claims section of the Billing Functions window in the Practice Management window.
Watch for On-Screen Errors and Problems With Your Claims
As PCC processes your claims, it will list activity on the screen and sort claims into batches. For example, claims that need to be printed will be placed in a paper batch for later printing by the hcfa
program.
PCC will also scrub your claims, which means checking claim information against standards required by payers. For example, it will check to see that demographics and insurance policy information are valid.
For some types of claim errors, PCC will display an error message on the screen, and provide an interface for you to fix the problem:
In the example above, the patient’s birth date is missing. You should press F6 – Patient Editor, enter the patient’s birth date, and then press F1 to save and continue.
Press F3 – Ignore Error to skip the problem and continue claim processing.
What Happens if I Ignore an Error?: If you ignore an error, it will appear later on the Bad Claims report. You can fix the problem, regenerate the claim, and run your claims again. If you do not fix problems on the Bad Claim report and regenerate the claim, your claim will never be submitted, and you will not receive payment for the charges.
Review the Bad Claims Report
Once PCC is finished processing your claims, it will ask to print the Bad Claims report to your default printer. You can print it so you have a physical copy, or retrieve it later in the ecsreports
program.
To learn more about this and other electronic claims reports, read Review Electronic Claim Submission Reports.
You should fix each error on the report, regenerate the claim in oops, and then re-run your claims. If you do not correct an error on the Bad Claims report, a claim will never be submitted and you will not receive payment for the charges.
PCC Runs the ECS Program
After claims are processed, PCC automatically runs the ECS
program, which formats and submits your claims. Depending on your practice’s configuration, this may run without options, or you may see a list of payer batches on the screen.
Optionally Select All or Some Batches to Send
If ECS
presents you with a list of batches, you can select all batches or pick individual batches to submit.
Press F3 – Select All and then press F1 – Process to send all prepared claims.
Note: Once ECS
finishes processing claims, the program will quit. Your actual submission might occur later if your internet connection is down. Your PCC system will continue trying to submit your claims until your connection becomes available again.
Run hcfa
to Print Any Remaining Paper Claims
You can run the hcfa program from the Insurance Billing section of your Practice Management window. Claims that could not be sent electronically will be waiting in hcfa
in a paper batch. You can run hcfa
at any time, select the batch(es) you wish to print, and generate paper HCFA forms.
Read Incoming ECS Reports
Several different reports will be sent to your practice as your claims move from your office to PCC, to a claim clearinghouse, and finally to the payer. Many reports show claim errors and should be reviewed carefully.
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preptags/tagsplit Bad Claims: Your system creates this report as it processes claims. It includes errors PCC found in your claims before they even left your system. You should review each one, correct the error in the patient’s account, regenerate a new claim, and submit your claims again.
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PCC Daily Submission Summary: This report comes from PCC’s central claim hub. It confirms that your claim successfully traveled from your system to PCC.
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Payer and Clearinghouse Acknowledgement Reports: These reports indicate that the payer or clearinghouse received your claims.
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Payer and Clearinghouse Error Reports: These reports contain rejections and errors that the payer or clearinghouse found on your claims. You must review and correct these errors. Most practices have a biller who runs the Claim Error Report in
srs
each day in order to address all payer and claim error responses.
Note: A copy of each report is stored in the ecsreports
program for later viewing, and some reports are automatically parsed and added to the account’s history so you can read what happened to a claim in the Correct Mistakes (oops
) program.