Blue Review
A newsletter for contracting institutional and professional providers

December 2020

Verify Multiple Patient’s Eligibility and Benefits Coverage via Availity®

Patient eligibility and benefits should be verified before every scheduled appointment. Providers are encouraged to use the Availity Provider Portal or their preferred vendor to check eligibility and benefits information for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois (BCBSIL) members. The Availity Eligibility and Benefits Inquiry offers an Add Multiple Patients feature for providers to check real-time eligibility and coverage details for two to 50 patients in the same request. In the Availity Eligibility and Benefits response, a Patient Card will appear in the left-side Patient History list, for each patient requested. Patient Cards will be available for interpretation for 24 hours and then auto delete from the Patient History list.

Tips for Using the Add Multiple Patients Option:

  • Enter each patient’s information on a separate line.
  • Press Enter on your keyboard to start a new line.
  • Separate each piece of information on each line with a comma.
  • Make sure to enter the information that matches the search option you selected in the Patient Search Option field.

This feature is available for BCBSIL commercial, Federal Employee Program® (FEP®) and on and off-exchange members. Start saving time and streamlining your eligibility and benefits inquiries by utilizing the Add Multiple Patients option. Refer to the Availity Eligibility and Benefits User Guide for step-by-step instructions.

Please note that the Add Multiple Patients feature is currently unavailable for Medicare Advantage and Illinois Medicaid members.

Checking eligibility and/or benefit information is not a guarantee of payment. Benefits will be determined once a claim is received and will be based upon, among other things, the member’s eligibility and the terms of the member’s certificate of coverage applicable on the date services were rendered. If you have any questions, please call the number on the member’s ID card.

Availity is a trademark of Availity, LLC, a separate company that operates a health information network to provide electronic information exchange services to medical professionals. Availity provides administrative services to BCBSIL. BCBSIL makes no endorsement, representations or warranties regarding any products or services provided by third party vendors such as Availity. If you have questions about the products or services provided by such vendors, you should contact the vendor(s) directly.