If an automated system can’t submit a claim at all — a connection failure, an API error, or a file that fails validation before it reaches the NDIA — the claim should be flagged for immediate review rather than silently retried or dropped. Unlike a rejected claim (which the NDIA has processed and declined), a submission failure means the claim never reached the NDIA in the first place, so it won’t appear in the myplace portal or any results file at all.
Why this is different from a claim rejection
A rejected claim has a record with the NDIA and a specific error reason. A claim that failed to submit has no NDIA-side record — it simply doesn’t exist from the NDIA’s perspective yet. This is why submission failures are easier to miss: there’s no portal entry or results-file line prompting someone to notice.
What should happen when submission fails
- Log the failure with its specific cause (API timeout, authentication issue, file validation failure) rather than a generic error.
- Confirm the claim genuinely never reached the NDIA — check the portal directly rather than assuming based on the automated system’s own status.
- Resubmit once the underlying cause is resolved , keeping the claim within its 90-day submission window from the end of the service booking.
- Track submission failures separately from rejections in internal reporting, since they need different troubleshooting (a technical/connectivity fix, not a claim-detail correction).
