Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina (BCBSNC) has recently experienced higher call volumes than usual due to members calling with questions about the Affordable Care Act health insurance exchange and its new plans. They are also seeing higher than normal provider inquiries—an almost 20,000 call increase in service requests in February as compared to September*.
BCBSNC Provider Inquiries: Q3 2013 — Q1 2014
|
September 2013 |
October 2013 |
November 2013 |
December 2013 |
January 2014 |
February 2014 |
|
115,035 |
133,710 |
113,112 |
108,288 |
107,693 |
134,204 |
To help deal with this increased call volume, BCBSNC urges you to use Blue eSM, the free, Internet-based solution to quickly check member eligibility and claim status information online. Average speed-of-answer times for provider calls range from two minutes to almost nine minutes (average provider speed-of-answer time for 2014 to-date is five and a half minutes)**,
Using Blue e allows you to:
- Verify member eligibility
- Confirm admission notifications
- Check claim status and view payment information
- Submit claims electronically to BCBSNC
Blue e is available for seven days a week, 20 hours a day, from 5 a.m. to 1 a.m. (times may differ for the claims submission function).
If you’re not currently using Blue e, you can also submit both eligibility (HIPAA 270) and claims (HIPAA 276) inquiries to BCBSNC via the HIPAA electronic transactions.
If you are not currently using Blue e, sign up here.
*Based on September 2013 through February 2014 BCBSNC provider service requests data
**Based on January and February 2014 BCBSNC provider call data
