Matching Inbound Payer ID Not Found; Charge left with a Credit Balance

It is very common for a charge line to have more than one error on the error report. Sometimes, the pairing indicates a very specific scenario requiring correction. The error pair Matching Inbound Payer ID Not Found; Charge left with a Credit Balance is one of these.

Important: Neither of these errors prevents the system from posting the payments, so often corrections are needed to resolve discrepancies.

These errors together mean the system doesn’t recognize the insurance, so it doesn’t know if it's the primary insurance on the patient’s case or the secondary. So the system will default to posting all payments as primary. This is crucial because secondary insurance adjustments are not posted. So, if a secondary payer is posted by the system as the primary, those secondary adjustments will be posted (in error) and will leave the patient with a credit balance.

Search for the Patient and then navigate to Error Corrections.
Enter the Date of Service and/or Charge ID you’re researching. Check the Show Inactives box, then click Search.
We can see that there is a primary payment with an adjustment, but also a secondary payment with an adjustment. This tells us the secondary insurance was not recognized by the system as the secondary payer on the patient’s case. To resolve this, click on the Charge ID.
Under the Secondary Payer, zero out the Adjustment Amount field.
Important: You should select the secondary payer in the From Ins Code drop-down. If the secondary has not been added to the patient’s case yet, it won’t be available for selection. You’ll need to select the primary payer until the secondary has been added in the patient’s case.
If you do not add the secondary insurance, you’ll need to delete the adjustment from every charge line you bill for this patient.
1. Additionally, the payments will all show under the primary insurance in the payment reports.
Once the secondary adjustment(s) have been removed, the credit balance will be resolved.