On June 20, 2024, Change Healthcare issued public notice of a data breach. We want to assure you this is not a Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts cyber incident. We continue to conduct all business operations, such as processing claims, benefits and eligibility verification, and referral and authorization requests by a variety of other methods.
News article updates
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts has partnered with the Mass Collaborative to establish the Change Healthcare Assistance Program (CHAP) — to help providers quickly identify claim submission solutions for your organization. The Center offers technical support to any provider affected by Change Healthcare’s outage.
The program offers:
Contact the Change Healthcare Assistance Program
We are supporting our participating providers who have been affected by the Change Healthcare incident by temporarily waiving the following for provider-submitted claims for our commercial, Medicare Advantage and Federal Employee Program plans.
We will continue to evaluate the situation regularly and will notify you before resuming our standard filing limit.
Option 1 - Use an alternative clearinghouse
We have existing relationships with the following clearinghouses and can accept HIPAA-compliant 837 claims transactions through them.
| Medical | Dental | |
|---|---|---|
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Please note: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts does not have a preferred clearinghouse for claims submission. Choosing one of the solutions listed above is a business decision to be made by each provider. You may want to consult with your practice management software company to determine which clearinghouse, if any, their application works with.
About 835 remittances
All 835 claim remittances created since February 21, 2024 have been stored. In light of the Change Healthcare outage, if you’d like, we can send 835 claim remittances to an alternative clearinghouse of your choice to enable you to reconcile your records. (Please note: You must first be enrolled to receive 835 remittances from the recipient clearinghouse.)
! Your EFT payments are not impacted. Payments are sent directly from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, and the online advisories can still be accessed in Payspan.
Option 2 - Submit claims electronically directly to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts
All health care providers in our network who can create a HIPAA-compliant 837 can submit claims directly to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts for free by following these steps:
Note: If you directly enter claims into ConnectCenter, this might not be an option for your practice. Building an 837 file is a complex task and often requires specialized software.
Option 3 – Mail in a paper claim
You can mail claims on paper to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts at the addresses listed below. Please note that processing paper claims will take at least 30-45 days. For faster payment, we recommend using one of the options listed above.
Mail addresses:
| 1500 form | UB-04 form | ADA 2019 form |
Blue Benefit Administrators of MA (BBA) |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Blue Cross Blue Shield |
Blue Cross Blue Shield |
Blue Cross Blue Shield |
Blue Benefit Administrators of MA |
Paper forms can be purchased at most office supply stores.
If you have questions, please call Provider Self Service at 1-800-771-4097, option 2.
If you have questions about your Blue Benefit Administrators of Massachusetts claims, visit our BBA page, or call 1-877-707-BLUE (2583).
Our Payspan and InfoDial applications are not affected by the event at Change Healthcare. You can continue to use those applications to review claim details.
Dental providers: If you cannot use Payspan or InfoDial, please call Dental Provider Services at 1-800-882-1178, option 3 to check claims status.
We have existing relationships with the following clearinghouses. These clearinghouses can submit HIPAA compliant 270 eligibility transactions to us.
| Clearinghouses for both medical and dental providers | Dental-specific clearinghouses | |
|---|---|---|
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Note: These clearinghouses offer capabilities for electronic attachments. |
You may want to consult with your practice management software company to determine which clearinghouse, if any, their application works with.
If these clearinghouses are not an option for you, please contact us:
Please expect a longer than usual response time because of increased call volume from the event at Change Healthcare.
Authorization Manager is not impacted by the event at Change Healthcare. You can submit referral requests through that tool.
Please note it does not accept batch requests. Referrals must be submitted individually.
If you are unfamiliar with Authorization Manager, or need other support with the tool, please email: HMMAuthorizationManager@bcbsma.com.
Carelon
Our vendor, Carelon Medical Benefits Management, administers prior authorization programs for the services listed below. Carelon is not affected by the event at Change Healthcare. Please continue to use Carelon’s secure website to submit prior authorization requests for these services.
Other options
If the options above are unavailable to you, you can call or fax requests for an authorization using the numbers listed below. Please understand that respond times may be longer than normal.
| Commercial members |
Call 1-800-327-6716 Fax 1-888-282-0780 |
|
Medicare HMO and PPO members |
Call 1-800-222-7620 Fax 1-800-447-2994 |
|
Federal Employee Program (FEP) Contact your local plan. In Massachusetts, call |
Call 1-800-689-7219 Fax 1-888–282–1315 |
| Behavioral or mental health |
Call 1-800-524-4010 Fax 1-888-641-5199 |
| For acute levels of care | Fax 1-888-973-0727 |
United Healthcare support for people concerned about personal data
Change Healthcare’s parent company, UnitedHealth Group, has created a dedicated website and call center (1-866-262-5342) to support those who may be concerned about their personal data affected in the Change Healthcare cyber security incident. Learn more on their web page or read our press release.
Thank you for the care you provide to our members.