Method II CAHs bill for facility and professional outpatient services only when physicians or practitioners reassign their billing rights to the CAH. CAHs must submit the reassignment application through PECOS or the paper Form CMS-855I.

Certain CAH claims were incorrectly returned with Fiscal Intermediary Shared System (FISS) reason codes 31006 and 31007 indicating that providers don’t have a reassignment on file in PECOS. CMS has agreed to temporarily turn off reason codes 31006 and 31007 for all dates of service. To address this issue, Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) stopped returning these claims with dates of service in 2025 and 2026. They will reprocess claims that were incorrectly returned since January 1, 2026. Payments should be issued in approximately two weeks.

CAHs do not need to take any action. You can get claims status information on your MAC portal and through FISS Direct Data Entry. If you identify any discrepancies with your PECOS record, contact Noridian.

Physicians and practitioners: Make sure you accurately reassign benefits to CAHs; see the Information for Critical Access Hospitals booklet for more information.