Claims Status Follow-up
Poll payer claim status, classify denials, and open one board task per problem claim with clear next-action notes so billing staff can work a prioritized queue instead of re-checking every claim by hand.
When to use
- You need a recurring sweep of outstanding claims to catch denials, rejections, and stuck-in-process claims early.
- Billing staff want a single task board queue of claims needing action instead of manually logging into a payer portal or clearinghouse.
- You need lightweight status tracking between sweeps without storing any PHI (protected health information — patient-identifying health data) in shared notes.
- You want the sweep to run on its own schedule (e.g. daily or every few hours) rather than being triggered manually each time.
Tools
http-gethttp-postcreate-taskupdate-memoryschedule-task
Playbook
- On each run, use
http-getto pull the current claim status batch from the clearinghouse or payer API, e.g. GEThttps://api.clearinghouse.example.com/v1/claims?status=pending,denied,rejected. Auth is injected by the org's Integration row for this host — never ask for, echo, or hardcode credentials. - If the call returns 401/403 or there is no Integration configured for that host, stop the run and use
send-messageto notify a human, naming the service and the scopes needed. - For each claim record returned, use the opaque claim or record ID only — never carry patient name, date of birth, or diagnosis details into any downstream step.
- Classify each claim's status code into one of: paid, pending (no action), denied, rejected, or needs-info. Use the payer's own denial/rejection codes as returned by the API; do not infer or guess a clinical reason for a denial.
- For every claim classified as denied, rejected, or needs-info, create one board task with
create-task, titled using only the opaque claim ID (e.g. "Claim CLM-88421 — denied, code CO-16"), with a next-action note describing the administrative step needed (e.g. "resubmit with corrected NPI (National Provider Identifier)" or "attach missing referral authorization"). Never put PHI in the task title or body. - If resolving a claim would require appending patient-record data beyond confirming an appointment, or would trigger a recall/reminder outreach campaign, do not act — create the task as a human-gated item and note in the task that it requires staff sign-off.
- Use
http-postonly to submit an already-approved, template-based status inquiry or acknowledgment back to the clearinghouse when the API supports it, e.g. POSThttps://api.clearinghouse.example.com/v1/claims/{id}/acknowledge. Any correction, resubmission, or deletion of claim data must go throughhttp-request(PATCH/PUT/DELETE) once a human has approved the change — this skill does not perform those writes itself. - After each sweep, use
update-memoryto record only aggregate, non-PHI counts (e.g. "sweep 2026-07-15: 12 pending, 3 denied, 1 needs-info") and the list of opaque claim IDs that received tasks, so the next run can avoid duplicating tasks for claims already queued. - Use
schedule-taskto confirm or renew the recurring sweep cadence (e.g. daily at 07:00) so status polling continues without manual re-triggering.
Failure modes
- Clearinghouse or payer API returns 401/403, or no Integration exists for the host — the run must stop and escalate to a human rather than retry with guessed credentials.
- A claim status or note field contains a symptom, diagnosis, or treatment description — this is a hard-refuse trigger; do not summarize or act on the clinical content, escalate to a human immediately.
- Duplicate tasks are created for a claim already queued from a prior sweep because
update-memorystate was not checked before callingcreate-task. - A denial requires a patient-record write beyond appointment confirmation, or would activate a recall/reminder campaign — these must never be executed automatically and must always route to human sign-off.
Done when
- Every denied, rejected, or needs-info claim from the current sweep has exactly one board task with an opaque ID and a clear administrative next action.
- No PHI appears in any task title, task body, or
update-memoryentry created by this run. - The recurring sweep schedule is confirmed active via
schedule-taskand the run's aggregate counts are recorded for the next cycle.