The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued a reminder about submitting duplicate claims to Medicare in a recent issue of the Medicare Quarterly Provider Compliance Newsletter (pdf).

As Medicare notes, submitting duplicate claims for the same service encounter is inappropriate. Medicare does not make payment for duplicate claims that a provider may submit.

CMS will pay the first claim that is approved and will deny subsequent claims for the same service as duplicates. Although Medicare is prohibited by law from paying claims immediately, CMS states that over 90 percent of clean, payable claims are paid within 30 days.

CMS advises providers not to keep re-submitting claims until they get paid. One submission is all that is required. CMS suggests that if you have not received payment after 30 days and are concerned about your payment, you should contact your MAC to check on claims status or use other electronic claims status inquiry functions to check with your MAC on claim status.

If you do not know the MAC’s phone number, you can find it on the CMS website by clicking here.