SYNTHETIC ACKNOWLEDGEMENT RETENTION NOTE

The 277CA archive in acknowledgements/ covers 120 days from the snapshot date.
Acknowledgement files are commonly retained at the clearinghouse for a short window only, so a
claim submitted before that window has no acceptance proof available even though it was accepted.

WHY THIS MATTERS
A claim the payer accepted and then never adjudicated, and a claim the payer never received at all,
look identical in an accounts receivable aging report. They have completely different remedies.
The accepted one is a status escalation and then an appeal. The never-received one is a
resubmission, and the timely filing clock has been running from the service date throughout. A
276 status request returns nothing for a claim the payer never accepted, which is itself the
diagnostic. A status response cannot explain adjudication; only the 835 can.

Claims in this folder fall into three acknowledgement states: accepted (277CA category A2),
not accepted (category A3), and no acknowledgement on file, which is either a silent drop or a
claim submitted before the retention window.
