Adding insurance carriers

From Dentrix Ascend, you have access to a large database of supported payers. You can add any of these supported insurance carriers to your organization's database. You can also add an insurance carrier that does not appear in the database of supported insurance carriers to your organization's database.

Tip: You can also add an insurance carrier when you are attaching insurance to a patient.

Note: Adding insurance carriers requires the "Create Carriers" security right.

To add an insurance carrier

  1. On the Home menu, under Insurance, click (or tap) Carriers.

    The Insurance Carriers page opens.

  2. Click (or tap) Add Carrier.

    The Select carrier box becomes available.

  3. In the Select carrier box, begin typing the insurance carrier's name or payer ID. A list of supported insurance carriers appears. Continue typing as needed to narrow the search results.

    Important: Henry Schein One maintains a database of supported payers. The database is updated regularly, and a list of carriers and each carrier's details is sent to Dentrix Ascend. Selecting a carrier from the list of supported payers ensures that your practice has up-to-date information for that carrier. Also, using a supported payer allows you to add attachments to claims (however, the payer might not accept electronic attachments; in which case, you can mail the attachments separately from the claims or print and mail the claim and attachments together).

  4. Do one of the following:

    • If the correct insurance carrier is listed, click (or tap) it to populate the boxes with that carrier's information.

    • If the correct insurance carrier name is not listed, finish typing the full name. The name must start with a number or letter, not a special character).

      Then, press the Tab key, or click (or tap) outside the box. A message about adding unsupported payers appears.

      Click (or tap) Use New Carrier Name. The options for adding a new insurance carrier become available.

  5. Set up the other options as needed:

    • Expected period of insurance claim resolution - The number of days after which you want to consider claims that are sent to the insurance carrier as being overdue. By default, the turnaround time is set to 14 days, but you can specify a different number of days to reflect the time frame that the carrier usually requires to process claims.

    • Phone number - The insurance carrier's main contact phone number and extension (if applicable).

    • Fax number - A fax number for the insurance carrier.

    • Website - The insurance carrier's website address. Do not include "http://" or "https://" at the beginning of the website address.

    • Printed claim format - For printed claims, select the ADA claim format that this carrier accepts: 2012, 2019, or 2024.

    Notes:

    • You cannot change the Carrier Name after you click (or tap) Add.

    • You cannot change the insurance carrier's Payer ID. The ID comes from a database (maintained by Henry Schein One) of payers that accept electronic claims, or if the payer is not supported, the ID is 06126 (in which case, the clearinghouse will have to print and mail a hard copy of the claim to the payer).

    • You must save the insurance carrier's information to make the Available Procedures button available, so you can specify which procedures are available for posting to the records of patients who are covered by this carrier (when the "Carrier procedures" procedure filter is selected during posting).

    • You must save the insurance carrier's information to make the Location Number button available, so you can to specify the location IDs that this payer has assigned to each location in your organization for electronic claims.

  6. Click (or tap) Add.

Important: Each time you add an insurance carrier to your organization's database, for each provider (and location serving as a provider) that is contracted with that carrier, you must go to the Contracted With section of that provider's user account (or location's information) and select the checkbox next to the carrier's name.