To prepare for the change in claim form, NGS implemented a new Optical Character Recognition System (OCR) in November 2013.   We have been experiencing delays with needed updates to this OCR system.   Unfortunately, this has caused a short term need to manually verify all paper claims data. This has increased the overall inventory of paper claims pending validation.  

Until these paper claims are completely entered, we cannot currently respond fully to claim status related questions.   In all likelihood, the claims have been received and are awaiting claim detail entry into MCS.   An extensive effort is underway to expedite processing for these outstanding paper claims. 

This issue applies only to the small volume of paper claims received.   The vast majority of electronically submitted claims and the claims submitted using the free features on the Connex portal are being processed, meeting all timeliness requirements. Please check www.ngsmedicare.com/Connex for details.

We regret the delay in handling the paper claims subm