Coordination of Benefits : Commercial Health Insurance

Explanation of Medical Benefits Form Requirement

An Explanation of Medical Benefits form must be included for each other payer when other health insurance sources are indicated on a paper claim or paper adjustment.

Note: ADA claims and claim adjustments and compound and noncompound drug claims and claim adjustments are not subject to the requirements regarding use of the Explanation of Medical Benefits form.

Paper claims or adjustment requests that have other health insurance indicated may be returned to the provider unprocessed or denied if they are submitted without the Explanation of Medical Benefits form for each other payer. Paper claims or adjustments submitted with incorrect or incomplete Explanation of Medical Benefits forms will also be returned or denied.

Use of the ForwardHealth Explanation of Medical Benefits form is mandatory; providers are required to use an exact copy. ForwardHealth will not accept alternate versions (i.e., retyped or otherwise reformatted) of the Explanation of Medical Benefits form.

The Explanation of Medical Benefits form requirement for paper claims and adjustments is intended to help ensure consistency with electronic claims and adjustments submitted via the ForwardHealth Portal or using an 837 transaction (including those submitted using PES software or through a clearinghouse or software vendor).

The Explanation of Medical Benefits form requirement applies to paper claims and paper adjustments submitted to Wisconsin Medicaid, BadgerCare Plus, SeniorCare, and the WCDP. Providers are reminded that, except for a few instances, Wisconsin Medicaid, BadgerCare Plus, SeniorCare, and WCDP are payers of last resort for any covered service. Therefore, providers are required to make a reasonable effort to exhaust all other existing health insurance sources before submitting claims to ForwardHealth or to a state-contracted MCO.

Wisconsin Medicaid and BadgerCare Plus are not payers of last resort for members who receive coverage from certain governmental programs. Providers should ask members if they have coverage from these other government programs.

If a member becomes retroactively enrolled in Wisconsin Medicaid or BadgerCare Plus after the provider has already been reimbursed by one of these government programs, the provider may be required to submit the claims to ForwardHealth and refund the payment from the government program.

Ink, Data Alignment, and Quality Standards for Paper Claim Submission

In order for OCR software to read paper claim forms accurately, the claim forms must comply with certain ink standards, as well as other data alignment and quality standards. The Explanation of Medical Benefits form will also need to comply with these standards.