Data · Published Oct 26, 2026 · Updated Oct 2026
Timely Filing Limits by Insurance Company: The Verified Table
A timely filing denial is the one denial you cannot appeal on the merits. The care was real, the claim was right, and the money is gone because the calendar ran out. Here are the limits we could verify, where to find the rest, and the tracker that keeps every claim inside its window.
Timely filing limits are payer deadlines for receiving a claim, usually counted from the date of service. Traditional Medicare allows 12 months. TRICARE allows one year. Many UnitedHealthcare commercial products allow 90 days. Medicaid varies by state, from 95 days in Texas to 12 months in Florida. Every other commercial limit lives in your contract: record each one, and track claim age weekly.
Key takeaways
- Traditional Medicare: 12 months from the date of service (42 CFR 424.44).
- Many UnitedHealthcare commercial products: 90 days. Confirm yours in the contract and admin guide.
- Medicaid varies by state: 95 days in Texas, 12 months in Florida.
- Corrected claims and appeals often have their own, shorter windows. Track them separately.
- Keep clearinghouse acceptance reports. They are your proof when you appeal a CO-29 you did not deserve.
Every denial code on your remittance has a recovery path except one. CO-29, "The time limit for filing has expired," usually means the money is gone for good, because the payer is not disputing the care or the coding. It is disputing the date. And since the CO group code makes it a contractual obligation, an in-network practice generally cannot bill the patient instead.
Verified timely filing limits by insurance, in one table
Many sites publish long lists of timely filing limits by insurer. Most cannot be traced to a source, and many are years out of date. This table includes only limits we could tie to a primary or published source as of December 2026. Everything else is a pointer to where your limit actually lives.
| Payer | Initial claim limit | Source | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Medicare (Part A and B) | 12 months (one calendar year) after the date of service | 42 CFR 424.44; CMS Claims Processing Manual, Ch. 1 | Narrow exceptions, such as Medicare administrative error or retroactive entitlement |
| TRICARE | One year from the date of service | TRICARE claims policy | Network contracts may set additional requirements |
| UnitedHealthcare (many commercial products) | 90 days from the date of service | UHC administrative guide; Journal of Urgent Care Medicine, Sep 2025 | Varies by product, state, and contract; 2026 guide revised corrected-claim rules |
| Texas Medicaid | 95 days | Texas Medicaid, as reported in JUCM, Sep 2025 | Managed care plans may set their own terms; check the state manual |
| Florida Medicaid | 12 months from the date of service | Florida Medicaid, as reported in JUCM, Sep 2025 | Check the current state provider manual |
Initial claim filing limit, in days
Amber: under 120 days. 12 months and one year shown as 365 days.
| Payer | Where your limit lives |
|---|---|
| Medicare Advantage plans | Your contract with the plan and the plan's provider manual; non-contracted rules differ |
| Aetna, Cigna, Humana | Your participation agreement first, then the payer's provider manual claims chapter |
| Blue Cross Blue Shield plans | Your local plan's agreement and manual; limits differ by plan and state |
| Other state Medicaid programs | The state Medicaid provider manual and each managed care plan's contract |
| Workers' comp and auto | State rules and the carrier; often shorter and tied to claim numbers |
Why the contract beats any table
For commercial payers, the filing limit you are held to is the one in your participation agreement. Two practices in the same city can have different limits with the same insurer because they signed different contracts at different times, and the insurer's published default may not match either. Some states also set minimum filing windows for fully insured plans, which can override a shorter contract term.
That is why the right move is not to memorize a list from the internet, including this one. It is to pull your contracts, write every limit into one reference sheet, and update it when a contract renews. The recurring tasks template has a contract-review row for exactly this reason.
The free Rescue Kit includes the follow-up tracker with a claim-age column and a timely filing deadline for every open claim.
Get the free Rescue KitThe clocks people forget
The initial claim limit is the clock everyone knows. Three others cause just as many write-offs.
| Clock | Usually counted from | Why it bites |
|---|---|---|
| Corrected or replacement claims | Often the original remittance date, sometimes the date of service | A fix made late can be denied even though the original claim was on time |
| Secondary claims | Often the primary payer's EOB date | Waiting on a slow primary can push the secondary out of its window |
| Appeals and reconsiderations | The date on the denial notice | Appeal windows are often shorter than filing windows |
| Medicaid after a primary payer | Set by the state | Coordination delays add up across two payers |
Why claims miss the window
Practices rarely miss filing limits because nobody cares. They miss them because a claim got stuck somewhere quiet. The common spots: charges not entered for days after the visit, claims held for a missing authorization number, rejections at the clearinghouse that nobody worked because they never became payer denials, secondary claims waiting on a primary EOB, and the corrected claim that sat in a to-do pile.
Each one is invisible on a normal AR report because the claim either has not reached the payer or looks like it is in process. This is the same upstream pattern described in the upstream fixes guide: the biller sees the CO-29, but the delay started earlier.
Build your payer reference sheet
A tracker is only as good as the limits you feed it. Build the reference sheet once, in an afternoon, and review it each year. Start with your top ten payers by claim volume, which in most independent practices cover the large majority of revenue. For each one, pull the current participation agreement and the provider manual, and record five things: the initial claim limit, the corrected-claim window, the secondary-claim rule, the appeal window, and the contract renewal date. Note the page or section where you found each limit so the next person can check it in a minute instead of an hour.
Give the sheet one owner, usually the billing lead or practice manager, and put a review on the calendar for every contract renewal and every January, when payers publish updated manuals. When a payer announces a change, as UnitedHealthcare did with corrected claims in its 2026 administrative guide, the owner updates the sheet the same week and tells the team. Keep it next to the payer portal login sheet so everything about a payer lives in one place. The reference sheet holds no patient information, which means it can live in your project tool safely.
The timely filing tracker
The fix is one more column on a tracker you should already run. For every open claim, record the date of service, the payer, that payer's limit from your reference sheet, and a computed deadline. Sort by days remaining. Anything under 30 days gets an owner and a same-week action. The denial and AR follow-up tracker already has the structure; add the deadline column and the formula Deadline = Date of service + Payer limit.
| Column | Example entry |
|---|---|
| Chart number | A-10432 (never a patient name) |
| Date of service | Nov 3, 2026 |
| Payer and product | Commercial PPO |
| Filing limit (from your reference sheet) | 90 days |
| Deadline | Feb 1, 2027 |
| Status | Rejected at clearinghouse: missing auth number |
| Owner and next action | Prior auth coordinator: attach auth, resubmit Friday |
A chart number keeps that tracker lean, but it is still a medical record number, which HIPAA lists among its identifiers (45 CFR 164.514(b)(2)(i)(H)). So the tracker holds minimized data, not de-identified data. Keep the rows to the columns above and confirm with a compliance advisor whether the tool needs a business associate agreement.
Proof of timely filing
Sometimes you file on time and get a CO-29 anyway. When that happens, you need proof. Keep the clearinghouse acceptance reports, the 999 and 277CA acknowledgments, that show the date and time the payer received the claim. Attach them to the appeal with a short cover note naming the claim, the date of service, and the acceptance date.
Payers accept these routinely. Without them, you are arguing from memory. The denial codes guide explains where CO-29 fits among the codes you can and cannot prevent.
The weekly claim-age check
Fifteen minutes every Friday: sort open claims by days to deadline, work everything under 30 days, and confirm the clearinghouse rejection queue is at zero. That routine belongs to whoever owns billing follow-up, and the practice manager watches the count of claims under 30 days the way they watch the weekly KPIs. If that number grows for two weeks running, something upstream is stuck. The deeper guide to CO-29 itself publishes in February and will link from this page. For the wider denial picture, see the 2025 to 2026 denial data.
- Pull the participation agreements for your top three payers and write each initial filing limit, with the page number, into one reference sheet.
- Add a Deadline column (date of service plus payer limit) to your AR tracker and sort it by days remaining.
- Open the clearinghouse rejection queue and give every rejection an owner and a resubmit date.
- Save last month's 999 and 277CA acceptance reports where the billing team can find them for appeals.
Find your leak before you fix it
Two ways to start, both free. Take the tracker and denial log and run it yourself, or get a 20-minute Leak Audit where we put a real number on what your operations are costing, using your own practice.
Frequently asked questions
What is a timely filing limit?
A timely filing limit is the deadline a payer sets for receiving a claim, usually counted from the date of service. Claims received after the limit are denied, typically with reason code CO-29, and the practice generally cannot bill an in-network patient for the balance.
What is Medicare's timely filing limit?
12 months, or one calendar year, after the date of service for traditional Medicare, under 42 CFR 424.44. Limited exceptions exist, such as administrative errors by Medicare or retroactive entitlement.
What is UnitedHealthcare's timely filing limit?
90 days from the date of service is the filing limit on many UnitedHealthcare commercial products for participating providers, but it can differ by product, state, and contract. Confirm it in your participation agreement and UnitedHealthcare's administrative guide, which was updated in 2026.
Do corrected claims have a different timely filing limit?
Often, yes: many payers set separate windows for corrected or replacement claims and for appeals, sometimes counted from the original remittance date rather than the date of service. UnitedHealthcare's 2026 administrative guide, for example, revised its corrected-claim filing rules. Record each window separately.
How do I prove a claim was filed on time?
Keep the clearinghouse acceptance reports, such as the 999 and 277CA acknowledgments, that show the date the payer received the claim. Those reports are the evidence payers accept when you appeal a CO-29 denial for a claim you did submit on time.