Timely Filing

Timely filing is the payer's deadline to submit a claim from the date of service — miss it and the claim is denied (CARC 29), but many of those denials are recoverable with proof of submission.

Timely filing is the window a payer gives you to submit a claim, measured from the date of service. The limits are set by your specific contract and plan, not by any universal rule: commercial payers commonly range from 90 days to a year, while Medicare fee-for-service is a hard, statutory one year. Miss the window and the claim comes back denied as CARC 29 ('time limit for filing has expired'). Timely filing is one of the most-written-off denials — practices assume it's final — and one of the most recoverable when you have proof. A clearinghouse acceptance report showing the claim was transmitted inside the window, or a primary payer's EOB that resets the clock for a secondary claim, frequently overturns a CARC-29 denial. Claims that bounce between primary and secondary payers under coordination of benefits are a classic source of timely-filing denials that shouldn't stick, because the secondary's clock often runs from the primary's remit date, not the date of service. The reason so much money sits unworked here is precisely that CARC 29 looks like a dead end — but the submission trail usually tells a different story, if someone pulls it before the appeal window itself closes.

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