Beginning September 1, 2020, UnitedHealthcare (UHC) will stop mailing claim acknowledgement letters and instead post them online in its Document Vault. Per UHC, acknowledgement letters will be available online the day they are generated and will remain available to download for up to 24 months. The date the document is loaded in the Document Vault will be considered the date the notification was sent.

The transition to paperless claim acknowledgements follows on the heels of  UHC’s recent announcement that it will begin the process of discontinuing physician payments via paper checks, instead requiring both contracted and non-contracted physicians to receive payment via automated clearinghouse/direct deposit or through virtual credit card payments.

These initiatives appear to mark the beginning of a much broader UHC initiative to move providers to all-paperless methods of communication. UHC advised in its September 2020 Network Bulletin that this fall, provider remittance advices, clinical and claim letters, as well as hospital admissions, will transition to electronic processes. In 2021, UHC indicates that it will begin to transition paper claims, claim attachments and medical records to digital channels as well.

For more information on UHC’s Document Vault see uhcprovider.com/documentvault or contact UHC Provider Services at (877) 842-3210.