It’s a new year with opportunities to revisit many of the resources VA provides community providers to speed up the claims payment process.

If a community provider submits a claim to VA, or one of VA’s third-party administrators (TPAs), with incorrect or incomplete information, the errors must be resolved.  Otherwise, the claim will be rejected until enough information is provided to allow for processing. As we all know, this can be frustrating for providers and Veterans.

Use any of VA’s top five resources to help avoid rejections and make claims processing as quick and smooth as possible:

1. Take some time to visit our community provider website.
2. Subscribe to the Provider Advisor Newsletter.
3. View our online videos for quick overviews of community care topics.
4. Learn the top reasons why a claim can be rejected, to avoid these errors.
5. Familiarize yourself and your staff members with the steps you need to take to file a claim  for Veteran care.

Are you a dental provider interested in partnering with VA to serve Veterans in your community? VA encourages high-performing dental providers to be part of the Community Care Network (CCN). As a CCN dental provider, you can take pride in providing high-quality health care to Veterans with convenience and improved access to dental care.

Key benefits of becoming a CCN dental provider include:

• Prompt payment within 30 days of receipt of clean claims, including resubmissions.
• Ability to deliver high-quality dental care to our nation’s Veterans.
• Utilization of industry-standard approaches and guidelines to administer services and a managed healthcare network.

Applying to become a VA dental provider is simple and quick. The first step is finding your CCN region. CCN provider partnerships are administered by a third-party administrator (TPA) in each of six regions. Provider partnerships for Regions 1, 2 and 3 are administered by Optum Public Sector Solutions, Inc. (Optum), part of UnitedHealth Group, Inc., while the TPA for Region 4 is TriWest Healthcare Alliance (TriWest). VA will announce the administrator for Regions 5 and 6 at a later date. You can find which region you are located in on the CCN Regional Map.

After identifying your CCN region, please follow the instructions on the following webpages to apply to become a CCN dental provider.

• In CCN Regions 1, 2, and 3, access the LHI Provider Portal
• In CCN Region 4, email TriWest at FSPS@delta.org

For more information about how to become a VA CCN dental provider, please use the following resources.

• For more information on becoming a dental provider for CCN in Region 4, access the TriWest VA CCN Website. 
• For Optum CCN dental provider resources, visit the Training & Guides section of the Optum VA Community Care Network portal.
• VA community provider website. 
• For free community provider education, access VA’s provider webinar series.

VA References:

• Fact Sheet: How to Become a VA Community Care Network Dental Provider
• Fact Sheet: How to Become a VA Community Provider 
• Fact Sheet: Community Care Network Regions 1 - 3

VA has released a new infographic that explains in simple, visual terms, the process for accessing VA’s new urgent care benefit. The infographic is available in both English and Spanish. 

Urgent care, a new benefit that provides Veterans with an efficient way to treat non-life threatening injuries, is a hot topic.  VA's top priority is ensuring Veterans have access timely, high-quality health care.

More information for community providers about the urgent care benefit is available here.

February 20, 2020:  VHA Office of Community Care Overview -  This webinar provides an overview of community care programs and policies, focuses on how to file clean claims, and goes into other topics such as eligibility, referral, top rejection reasons and other provider issues.  Register for the webinar.

February 27, 2020:  Caring for Our Veterans who Experienced Military Sexual Trauma (MST): What Community Mental Health Providers Need to Know - This webinar will provide an overview of important information about military sexual trauma (MST) to assist community mental health clinicians in providing mental health care to Veterans who experienced MST.  At the end of this webinar attendees will be able to define military sexual trauma (MST), identify how MST is similar to and different from other types of trauma, articulate common reactions after MST, identify best treatment practices and be able to describe VA services available for MST survivors.

Registration links also available at https://www.va.gov/COMMUNITYCARE/providers/EDU_Training.asp#webinars 

Go to the VA's community care Provider Education & Training  Resources web page for a full listing of upcoming webinars and links to recordings of past webinars.