Claim status checks and denial follow-up in one work queue

Opexia builds claim status and denial follow-up automation for billing companies, practices and MSOs whose staff check claims one portal at a time. Our software queries status through your clearinghouse's X12 276/277 or payer APIs, falls back to portals only where needed, reads denial codes from 835 remittances, sorts every open claim into queues by payer, age and reason, and drafts appeal packets for staff sign-off, with an audit trail throughout.

Who this is for

A good fit

  • Medical billing companies working claims for several client practices.
  • Practices, medical groups and MSOs with in-house billing teams and many payers.
  • Care-delivery and digital health companies that bill payers from their own platform.

Not a fit

  • Teams whose clearinghouse or practice management system already gives clean status and denial worklists. Tune that first.
  • Anyone looking for an outsourced billing or collections service: we build software; we do not work your claims.
  • Denial prediction projects without consistent remittance history. Categorized denials have to come first.

Signs claim follow-up has outgrown manual work

If several of these sound familiar, follow-up is ready for automation:

  • Status checked one claim at a time

    Staff log into portals or call payers to learn where individual claims stand.

  • An aging report nobody trusts

    The accounts receivable list shows balances, not which claims are denied, pending or never received.

  • Denial codes read by hand

    Someone translates remittance codes into next steps claim by claim, and the same denials come back each month.

  • Deadlines tracked from memory

    Timely filing and appeal windows live in a spreadsheet or someone's head, so some are missed.

  • No view of why claims are denied

    Seeing denial trends by payer or reason takes a manual export and a pivot table.

How we build it

Unpaid claims age quietly. Someone has to check each one: log into a portal or call the payer, note the status, read the remittance when it arrives, work out why a claim was denied, and decide whether to correct, resubmit or appeal before the payer's deadline. We automate the checking and sorting so your staff spend their time on those decisions. Status comes from the most reliable source first: the X12 276/277 claim status transaction or a status API through your clearinghouse, then payer APIs, and a portal connector only for payers that offer nothing else and whose terms allow automated access. Denials are read from 835 remittances using the standard group, claim adjustment reason (CARC) and remittance advice remark (RARC) codes, then mapped to categories your team defines, such as eligibility, authorization, coding, timely filing or missing documentation. Every open claim lands in a work queue by payer, age, reason and appeal deadline. For appealable denials the system drafts a packet from the claim, the remittance detail, the relevant notes and your letter template, and a staff member reviews and signs it off before anything is sent. Every status check, category change and edit is logged. The software is built to HIPAA requirements (encryption, audit logging, role-based access), and you own the source code on final payment.

Core Benefits

EDI and API Before Portals
Denials Sorted by Reason
Appeals Signed Off by Staff

What we build

  • Scheduled claim status checks through X12 276/277 or clearinghouse and payer APIs
  • Portal status connectors for payers with no electronic route, within each portal's terms of use
  • 835 remittance parsing, with group, CARC and RARC codes mapped to your denial categories
  • Work queues by payer, claim age, denial reason and appeal deadline, with assignment to staff
  • Appeal and corrected-claim packet drafts from claim, remittance and notes, released only after staff sign-off
  • Status and denial history written back to your practice management system or data warehouse
  • Reports on open claims by age, payer and denial category, with Excel export
  • Audit trail of every status check, category change and edit, with role-based access

Part of a larger service

This is one specific service within RPA Billing Automation.

Manual, vendor feature, product or custom: how the options compare

General categories, not specific vendors. Check any product's own terms before deciding.
OptionWhat it handlesPayer coverageWork queueAudit trailTrade-off
Manual staff workPortal lookups, payer calls, reading remittances and writing appeals, claim by claim.Any payer, through whatever channel it offers.An aging report plus spreadsheets or notes.Notes in the practice management system, when staff add them.Nothing to build, but follow-up slips whenever volume rises or someone is out.
Clearinghouse or practice management vendor featureElectronic status responses and remittances for connected payers, sometimes with basic denial worklists.The vendor's payer connections; portal-only payers stay manual.The vendor's worklists, organized its way.The vendor's transaction history.Often already in place; denial categories, deadlines and appeal packets usually stay manual.
Off-the-shelf RCM or denial-management productStatus checks, denial worklists and appeal templates in a packaged product.The product's payer connections and rule set.The product's queues and categories.The product's log, on the vendor's terms.Quick when your process matches the product; harder to fit client-specific rules, several client practices or your own reporting.
Custom automationStatus checks, denial categorization, queues and appeal drafts built around how your team works.276/277 or API first, with a portal connector only where needed, chosen payer by payer.Queues built on the payer, age, reason and deadline rules you set.You decide what is logged, and you hold the log.Slowest to start, and connectors need maintenance as payers change.

Custom automation only makes sense when the other options leave gaps, for example when several payers are portal-only, your denial categories and deadlines differ by client, or you need follow-up data in your own reporting.

Standards and deadlines behind claim follow-up

Denial follow-up runs against deadlines. For Original Medicare, a redetermination must be requested within 120 days of receiving the initial determination, which is presumed received five calendar days after the notice date. Other payers set their own appeal and corrected-claim windows, so deadlines are stored per payer rather than assumed. Source: CMS, First Level of Appeal: Redetermination by a Medicare Contractor.

In effect

X12 276/277 is the HIPAA claim status standard

The ASC X12 276/277 Health Care Claim Status Request and Response, version 005010X212, is the adopted HIPAA standard for the claim status transaction on and after January 1, 2012, with CAQH CORE operating rules added from January 1, 2013. That is why we query status electronically before touching a portal.

In effect

835 remittance operating rules, including uniform use of CARCs and RARCs

The 835 Health Care Claim Payment/Advice carries adjustment detail as group, reason (CARC) and remark (RARC) codes. From January 1, 2014, HHS adopted CAQH CORE rules for remittance advice, including uniform use of CARCs and RARCs in defined scenarios. X12 publishes and revises both code lists, so our code tables are updated rather than hardcoded.

Engineering and operations context, not legal or billing advice. Last reviewed 2026-09-28.

How an engagement starts

Cost depends on scope, so we don't quote a generic range. Book a free 30-minute consultation: we review your requirements and workflow, then send a written scope and quote tied to what you actually need. Scoping starts from a sample of your open claims and recent remittances: which payers you check most, which route each offers (276/277, an API or only a portal), and which denial reasons recur. The written scope defines your denial categories, queue rules and appeal packet contents, the first payers to automate, and the timeline for each phase. You can commit one phase at a time.

Useful before a first call:

Technology Stack

FastAPI (Python)

Status, remittance and queue services, with role-based access enforced at the API layer

PostgreSQL

Claims, status history, denial categories, queue state and the audit log

X12 276/277 and 835 via your clearinghouse

Electronic claim status and remittance data

Playwright

Portal status connector for payers without an electronic route, within each portal's terms of use

Automated Excel & PDF reporting

Open-claim and denial reports by payer, age and category

Cloud secrets manager

Encrypted clearinghouse and portal credentials, kept out of logs

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about claim status checks and denial follow-up in one work queue

How do you handle portal credentials and payer terms of use?

Clearinghouse keys and portal credentials sit in an encrypted secrets store and are never written to logs. Portals are the last resort: we check each payer's terms first and automate only where they allow it. We do not bypass CAPTCHAs or bot detection; a payer that forbids automation stays on EDI, an API or staff.

What happens when a payer changes its portal or API?

The affected connector fails loudly, not silently: unexpected pages or responses stop it, alert us and leave its claims in the staff queue marked as unchecked. We then update the connector. Electronic routes such as the 276/277 change rarely and with notice, which is one reason we use them before portals.

How are denials categorized?

From the codes on the 835 remittance: the group code, the claim adjustment reason code (CARC) and any remittance advice remark codes (RARC). We map those codes to categories your team agrees, such as eligibility, authorization, coding or timely filing. Staff can recategorize a claim, and every change is logged.

Does the system send appeals automatically?

No. It drafts the packet: claim details, the remittance lines, supporting notes and your letter template. A staff member reviews, edits and signs it off before anything is submitted, and that sign-off is recorded. Which denials are worth appealing, correcting or writing off remains your team's decision.

Will this replace our billing staff?

No. It removes status lookups, re-keying of remittance codes and the manual sorting of open claims. Your staff still handle the exceptions: deciding whether to correct, resubmit or appeal, calling payers when a claim is stuck, and applying billing judgement. They start each day from a sorted queue instead of an aging report.

Can this predict denials before claims go out?

Not as part of this build, and we make no prediction claims. Consistently categorized denial history is the groundwork: once remittances are coded the same way over time, that data can feed a prediction model later. Our article on denial prediction architecture, linked on this page, describes that pattern.

Do you sign a BAA?

Yes. We sign a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) before any PHI access: no one on our team sees protected health information until it is executed. We can sign your organization's BAA or provide ours. The software is built to HIPAA requirements (encryption, audit logging, role-based access), and it still belongs in your own HIPAA risk analysis.

How much does claim status and denial automation cost?

Cost depends on scope, so we don't quote a generic range. Book a free 30-minute consultation: we review your requirements and workflow, then send a written scope and quote tied to what you actually need. Scope depends mostly on how many payers are included, which status route each offers, and how detailed your appeal packets need to be.

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Final Step

Outgrown Your
Spreadsheets?

If your care-management operation still runs on spreadsheets and manual monthly reporting, let's talk about what a custom platform would look like.

HIPAA

Built to its requirements

Custom

Built around your workflow

Direct

Access to the team building your system