Authorization is required on an inpatient stay; however, under limited 
circumstances and by request, the IBC Care Management and Coordination (CMC) 
team may extend review of a case after services have been provided in order to 
determine coverage or eligibility for payment. This process is called 
retrospective (or post-service) review, and it is not a guarantee that the 
inpatient stay will be authorized. These limited circumstances include: 
when a hospital/facility is unaware of a member's insurance coverage at the 
initiation of service. In this scenario, it is the responsibility of the 
hospital/facility to obtain authorization as soon as that information is 
obtained. 
if the hospital/facility discovers that a patient is an eligible IBC member 
after he or she is discharged but he or she was incorrectly classified under 
different insurance coverage. In this case, the hospital/facility must provide 
CMC with the admission "face sheet."
if the patient is discharged prior to medical review being completed.
If you are not certain whether authorization for an inpatient stay was 
obtained, please use the NaviNet
® web portal to verify the 
status of the authorization request prior to submitting a claim.
To request a retrospective review, please adhere to the following processes:
For emergency admissions. If you find that notification of an emergency 
admission was not given by the hospital to CMC, you can request a retrospective 
review through NaviNet for up to a year after the date of service. To do so, 
select ER Admission Notification from the Authorizations option in the Plan 
Transactions menu.
For elective admissions. If you find that authorization was not obtained for an 
elective admission, you can initiate a review by calling 
1-800-ASK-BLUE Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., 
and following the voice prompts.
Note: Please do not send paper copies of the member?s complete medical record 
for an admission where authorization was not previously obtained. Medical 
records only need to be submitted in select cases and upon request. 
Once our CMC team has been notified of the request for retrospective review, we 
will contact the hospital/facility to request clinical information. In the case 
of hospitals/facilities for which we have remote access to medical records, we 
will attempt to obtain the clinical information on our own.
Review of the case and notification of the determination will be made no later 
than 30 days from when we receive all supporting information that is necessary 
to perform the review. If the hospital/facility fails to supply clinical 
information for retrospective review, we may issue an administrative denial of 
payment.
Please also note the following:
We will base our determination of medical necessity on the information that was 
available to the hospital/facility at the time of admission.
The hospital/facility may not bill a member for services that are determined 
not to be medically necessary during the retrospective review process.
If you have any questions about this process, please call your Network 
Coordinator. 
NaviNet® is a registered trademark of 
NaviNet, Inc., an independent company.