Medicare ERA Enrollment: Getting 835 Remittances Through Your Clearinghouse Instead of a Portal (2026)

The Short Answer

Medicare already sends every Part B remittance as an X12 835 file. A practice that is downloading remittances from a MAC portal, or still receiving paper, has usually not completed the ERA enrollment, has the 835 routed to a receiver it no longer uses, or has a clearinghouse that holds the file without posting it. Fixing that is paperwork, not software: a form signed by the provider's authorized official, naming one receiver ID, filed with the MAC. The rules below are quoted from CMS, Noridian, Novitas, Palmetto GBA and the four clearinghouses' own documents, all read on 2026-10-16.

This is the Medicare spoke of the ERA enrollment guide. The First Payer Live offer takes one payer from portal downloads to posted 835s in three weeks, and Medicare is usually the right first payer because the enrollment path is public and free.

What CMS Requires

The CMS enrollment page says the standard EDI enrollment form "must be completed prior to submitting Electronic Media Claims (EMCs) or other EDI transactions to Medicare. The agreement must be executed by each provider of health care services, physician, or supplier that intends to submit EMC or use EDI, either directly with Medicare or through a billing service or clearinghouse."

Chapter 24 of the Medicare Claims Processing Manual (revision 13105, April 2025) adds the ERA-specific step: "Each provider that will use ERA either directly or through a billing agent or clearinghouse with Medicare must sign the ERA Enrollment Form and submit it to the A/B MAC or CEDI with which ERA transactions will be received before the A/B MAC or CEDI will transmit ERA." MACs "may accept a signed ERA Enrollment Form for providers via fax, email, internet portal, or hard copy and may accept electronic signature formats, 'wet', or a combination of the two."

The provider is also on the hook for keeping the routing current. The CMS-10164B agreement commits the provider to "notify the CMS contractor of any changes in third-party services that it has authorized to access this information on their behalf via the EDI Enrollment form." A practice that switched clearinghouses and did not refile is the most common reason an 835 "stopped arriving".

The One-Receiver Rule

This is the rule behind most of the forum threads. Chapter 24 says: "Provision must be made to return claim remittance files either to the provider or to a designated receiver (which may be the submitter or another entity, but not both)." It also warns that "some health care providers use or may want to use more than one billing service or clearinghouse" and that a MAC's "ability to handle more than one agent varies", with some unable "to accommodate more than one agent for a provider."

Novitas puts it in one line: "Only one receiver can receive ERA at a time." Its form 8292 goes further: "If the PTAN listed on page one is associated to any other non-Novitasphere Portal submitter or receiver ID(s), Novitas Solutions will remove the other submitter/receiver ID(s) immediately, unless indicated below." Availity's enrollment form for Noridian's Utah Part B jurisdiction (dated 2019) states the same for EDISS Connect: one receiver ID for 835 ERAs per NPI.

So the question an AAPC member asked in 2018, whether Medicare allows two clearinghouses on one tax ID, has a split answer that another member gave correctly: claims from two, ERAs to one. A practice that adds a second clearinghouse, or whose billing company uses its own, must decide which receiver gets the 835 and tell the other.

How Each MAC Enrolls You

Noridian (JE and JF). Enrollment runs through EDISS Connect. Noridian's page describes "the process of setting up a billing NPI to exchange data electronically with Noridian such as submitting claims and receiving remittance advices", and the registration step is to "identify transactions that will be registered: 837 - Claim Submission, 835 - Electronic Remittance Advice". The EDISS FAQ states: "Vendors are not permitted to enroll on behalf of a provider" and, on cost, "No. The system is free to all providers and vendors."

Novitas (JH and JL). Form 8292 (revision R1-26) has a required choice: "Select ONLY ONE ERA option", from "Assign ERA to an existing submitter ID", "Maintain existing ERA setup", "Create a new and separate submitter ID for ERA purposes only", or "Assign ERA to the new submitter ID being requested". The signature rule: "The Authorized Official signing this form should be an AUTHORIZED OR DELEGATED OFFICIAL that was listed on the Medicare Enrollment Application (CMS-855). Clearinghouse and Billing Service representatives are not permitted to sign for the provider." Submission is "complete form, print, sign, date, and fax (recommended), OR mail all pages", and Novitas says to "allow two weeks for processing." Paper remits do not stop at once: "Part B: Paper remittance will continue for forty-five (45) days after initial enrollment for ERA." The 835 itself "is available for retrieval for 60 days." For practices that want their own copy alongside the clearinghouse's, Novitas notes that "providers using a clearinghouse or billing service can choose to download the ERA on their own" by enrolling for a direct EDI receiver ID, and Novitasphere is "a free web-based portal" to "access, view and print electronic remittances".

Palmetto GBA (JJ and JM). Palmetto's enrollment pages are rendered in the browser and could not be fetched as text for this article, so the details here come from its status-message document and from Office Ally's instructions for it. Palmetto's tracking states read, for example, "Approved – Remits: The PTAN has been linked to the Submitter ID/Receiver ID on the EDI Application." Office Ally's North Carolina Part B instructions (October 2025) give Office Ally's submitter and receiver ID as U076 and a "Standard Processing Time" of "15 business days".

First Coast (Florida Part B). Office Ally's packet (November 2024) has the provider "choose Assign ERA to an existing submitter/receiver ID: P4888", email the form to First Coast's EDI address, and allow "up to 30 business days".

What is consistent across all four: the provider's official signs, the form names one receiver ID, there is no fee, and the MAC's turnaround is measured in weeks.

What the Clearinghouses Require

Availity Essentials. The EDI connection guide says: "You can also optionally enroll to receive electronic remittance advice files (also known as ERAs and 835 files) through Availity", via "My Providers | Enrollments Center | Transaction Enrollment", which "enables you to enroll providers either one at a time through a series of web forms, or by uploading a spreadsheet". The routing choice is explicit: "first determine who will receive your ERA files, as they can be sent to only one delivery location. ERA files can be sent to a provider, a clearinghouse, a vendor, or a billing service." For a billing company, the multipayer form requires that "you must have each provider complete and sign an enrollment form authorizing you to retrieve its remittance files, or you must submit a copy of your power of attorney". Pricing: "Transactions that are listed as Available in the payer list are sponsored by the associated payer and are provided at no charge. Transactions that are listed as Contract Required in the payer list are fee-based." Medicare enrollment is not done inside Availity; its Noridian form says enrollment "must be completed utilizing Noridian's EDISS Connect". Availity's 2014 multipayer form quotes "three to five business days" for its own processing.

Office Ally. Its ERA forms page: "Some payers require EDI enrollment in order to activate Electronic Remittance Advice (ERA/835). Payers that require ERA/835 enrollment are indicated on our Payer List, with an orange exclamation point. As a service to our customers, Office Ally provides the payer enrollment instructions, pre-filled with Office Ally's information where ever required." Separately from payer enrollment, Office Ally needs its own routing form: "All ERA files will be routed to this username. We cannot separate payers into multiple accounts. We only need one form on file for each NPI and Tax ID combination." Signature: "A handwritten signature is required (no electronic signatures). Must be signed by the provider, practice/facility owner, or account owner. Signatures from billers or third-party organizations will be rejected." Its processing time is "one week". Office Ally lists no ERA-specific fee; its data sheet states a "Non-Par Claim processing fee" of "$44.95", charged "per unique Tax ID + Rendering NPI combination if any Non-Par claims are submitted within the month", and that it "may pass through any third-party fees, without markup".

Change Healthcare / Optum. The former Change Healthcare enrollment page now redirects to Optum's enrollment forms page, which lists per-payer ERA forms and says "if you don't see the form you're looking for, please refer to the Optum Pro Portal" and "Current customers: Please contact your vendor for assistance." Its EFT forms were marked "currently unavailable, coming soon" on the day of reading. For software vendors, Optum's Payer Enrollment Services API "returns provider enrollments that are approved and ready for onboarding in the payer's systems" and requires a contract with Optum's sales team. Turnaround and fees are not stated on the fetched pages.

Waystar. Waystar's enrollment page is marketing copy: it "pre-populate[s] enrollment forms and apply[ies] e-signatures", "guides clients through online payer enrollments, works directly with payers to gather status updates and maintains a digital Enrollment Dashboard". No turnaround figure, fee or routing rule is published; those come with the contract.

A Comparison Point: Optum Pay

UnitedHealthcare's 835 path shows how a commercial payer differs from Medicare. Its provider site says "Electronic Remittance Advice (ERA)/835 EDI transactions can be set up to receive PRAs electronically", that "registration and routing are completed at the TIN level", and that the practice should "contact your software vendor or clearinghouse to request direct delivery of your UnitedHealthcare 835 files. Once we receive the request from your vendor/clearinghouse, it takes about 30 days to set up ERA/835 delivery." Enrolment in Optum Pay is "Basic: Available at no cost" or "Premium: Fee is 0.5% per ACH/direct deposit/EFT", and a practice that does not enrol will "receive consolidated 835 files (a file for each check you receive) and continue to receive paper EOBs in the mail." The commercial payer spoke covers the other large payers.

The Checklist

1. Confirm who the 835 receiver is today. Ask the MAC's EDI help desk which submitter or receiver ID is linked to each PTAN; Palmetto's status messages and Novitasphere show it.
2. Decide the one receiver: the clearinghouse your posting system reads from.
3. Have the authorized official on the CMS-855 sign the MAC's ERA form naming that receiver ID. Not the biller, not the clearinghouse.
4. File the clearinghouse's own routing form if it has one (Office Ally's Delivery Change Form, Availity's Transaction Enrollment).
5. Expect two to six weeks, and a window of both paper and electronic remits.
6. Confirm the first 835 posts in the practice-management system, and that the 60-day retrieval window is not being missed.

Once the file arrives, posting it is the second half of the job. The EOB and ERA retrieval automation page covers posting 835s, reading the EOBs that still come on paper, and the portal route where a payer allows it.

Check the payer's terms before automating a portal. Several large payers do not allow it. Availity announced in April 2022 that it was ending bot access to Availity Essentials and offers API connections to approved partners instead. The terms of use for the UnitedHealthcare provider portal and Optum prohibit using software to access or scrape their online services, and the Evernorth terms bar robots, scripts and scraping unless Evernorth approves in writing. A bot that breaks a portal's terms puts the practice's portal account at risk. Terms change, so read the current version for each payer; we last read these on 2026-09-29. This is engineering context, not legal advice.

Related Reading

• ERA enrollment guide: 835s instead of portal downloads, payer by payer
• Commercial payer ERA enrollment: Aetna, Cigna, UnitedHealthcare, Humana, BCBS
• First Payer Live: one payer's remittances without the portal, in three weeks

Sources

• CMS, How to enroll in Medicare Electronic Data Interchange
• CMS-10164B, EDI Enrollment Form (PDF)
• Medicare Claims Processing Manual, Chapter 24, Rev. 13105 (April 2025) (PDF)
• Noridian JE Part B, EDI Enrollment
• EDISS Connect help and FAQ
• Novitas Solutions, EDI Enrollment Form 8292 (R1-26) (PDF)
• Novitas Solutions, Understanding the Electronic Remittance Advice
• Palmetto GBA, EDI enrollment tracking status messages (PDF)
• Availity, EDI Connection Services Quick Start Guide (PDF)
• Availity, Multi-payer ERA 835 enrollment form (2014) (PDF)
• Availity, Medicare Utah Part B 835/837 enrollment instructions (2019) (PDF)
• Office Ally, Payer ERA enrollment forms
• Office Ally, ERA Delivery Change Form 2026 (PDF)
• Office Ally, Medicare Florida Part B EDI/ERA enrollment packet (November 2024) (PDF)
• Office Ally, Medicare North Carolina Part B ERA enrollment instructions (October 2025) (PDF)
• Office Ally, Service Center data sheet
• Optum, Enrollment forms (formerly Change Healthcare enrollment services)
• Optum Developer, Payer Enrollment Services API overview
• Waystar, Enrollment support
• UnitedHealthcare, Electronic payment solutions and ERA/835
• Optum Pay FAQ (PDF)
• AAPC forum, Using two clearinghouses, one tax ID (2014 to 2018)

Last reviewed 2026-10-16.