User Guide — Correspondence Types Summary

Payers are required to file 1099 IRS tax forms on all payments over a certain threshold made to providers of medical services. When athenahealth receives requests for information related to filing a 1099 or receives a 1099 for your practice, we place the scanned copy of the document in a 1099 Tax Form record for your review.

athenaOne automatically closes 1099 Tax Form correspondence records after 1 year of creation. You can still find them using the Find Correspondence page and reopen them if needed to take other actions.

The Audit Review correspondence record is used for Medicare RAC audit letters.

Outstanding Medicare RAC audit letters that have not been worked are assigned to this record type. You should review these letters in a timely fashion: you have only a limited amount of time to respond to Medicare to avoid penalties.

Correspondence related to authorization and referral requests are placed in "Authorization / Referral" records. These are most commonly prior-authorization/precertification determinations, requests for patient authorization, or referrals for patients.

Bankruptcy records are notifications of patient bankruptcy. These notifications are time-sensitive.

When a patient returns a payment through the mail, athenaOne checks to see whether the patient requested a change of address or updated their insurance information on the payment stub. If a change of address or insurance information is detected, athenaOne places a copy of the payment stub in a correspondence record for your practice to review and update the patient's record in athenaOne.

Some payers mail acknowledgement reports to confirm when claims have been submitted correctly. When athenahealth receives these letters, they are discarded into Claim Submission Acknowledgment records.

Generic correspondence, such as solicitations, are discarded into this record type.

Denial records contain actionable information about claims, including payer communications about appeals and requests for additional information. athenahealth creates Denial records when we do not have enough information to confidently match the remittance to a claim.

Some payers still mail a notification when electronic remittance has been transmitted to athenaOne. These notifications are superfluous and athenaOne discards them into Electronic Payment Notification records, which are closed upon creation.

The Illinois Department of Public Aid (IDPA), which is associated with Medicaid‑IL, requires that providers sign and return certain forms to the IDPA. If your organization bills Medicaid‑IL, this correspondence type may include forms that you need to sign and return, such as Form DPA 2243, Form DPA 1413, Form DPA 2307, Form DPA 2306, and Form DPA 1517/1517A.

Legal information, such as death certificates, is discarded into this record type.

If a request for a medical record is scanned through our remittance processing workflow, we place a copy of the images in a Medical Record Request record for practice review.

A Patient Correspondence record is created for any patient correspondence sent to the practice that is not better classified under a more specific record type.

When a patient returns a payment stub with additional information beyond the payment amount, athenahealth places a copy of the images in a Patient Statement Review record to determine the next appropriate action to take.

A Payer Correspondence record is created for any payer correspondence sent to the practice that is not better classified under a more specific record type.

Payer Reports contain correspondence from a payer of various report types.

Practice Correspondence Identified in Batch records are non-athenahealth-related correspondence that is received. This type of correspondence includes marketing materials, menus, special offers, and any other paper not related to athenahealth that is for practice review.

Provider Number Confirmation/Information records contain provider identification information. This type of correspondence may include confirmation of submission, request for an update, or any additional information regarding the provider's identification with the payer.

A remittance and status report, generally supplied by Medicaid payers, lists charge level information about claim payments and denials. Many Medicaid payers require this report as supplemental documentation during the appeals process. athenaOne downloads these reports for some states to aid in potential future appeals. These records are created in a closed status and do not require practice review.

Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standards state that we cannot scan patient statements containing credit card information. We create "unprocessable credit card (UCC)" records to identify patient statements that contain credit card information.

We permanently remove the image of this remittance record/unpostable. The record indicates the patient ID, intended payment amount, and notification of image removal. When you receive this record, contact the patient to make alternate payment arrangements.

A W-9 is a request for taxpayer identification and certification. Payers are required to have a W-9 on file for all payees in order to know how much withholding tax to collect for the IRS. When athenahealth receives a W-9 request for your practice, we place the scanned copy of the document in a W-9 Request record for your review.