Reminder: Starting Jan. 1, requests for commercial SNF admissions must be submitted through e-referral and not by fax

As a reminder, beginning Jan. 1, 2022, we'll require skilled nursing facilities to submit prior authorization requests through the e-referral system and not by fax. This applies to requests for our Blue Cross and Blue Care Network commercial members for:

• Initial admissions
• Additional days

We published details about this change in recent issues of our provider newsletters.

What's changing

Starting Jan. 1:

• We'll stop accepting faxed requests as a general practice.
• We'll accept faxes only for urgent requests when the e-referral system is not available. In those instances, fax the form using the instructions on the document titled e-referral system planned downtimes and what to do. (PDF)

If we receive a faxed form for a non-urgent admission when the e-referral system is available, we won't accept the request. We'll notify you by fax or phone that you must submit the request through the e-referral system.

Sign up now to use the e-referral system

Refer to our ereferrals.bcbsm.com website:

• To sign up for the e-referral system: Follow the instructions on the Sign Up or Change a User page.
• To learn how to use the e-referral system: Refer to the Training Tools page, where you'll find the e-referral User Guide (PDF) and Online self-paced learning modules.

Do's and don'ts when submitting through the e-referral system

For tips on how to make it easier to use the e-referral system when submitting commercial SNF prior authorization requests, refer to the article we published in the May 2021 issue of The Record titled Do's and don'ts when submitting commercial SNF requests using the e referral system.

Submit Medicare Advantage requests to naviHealth

naviHealth manages prior authorization requests for SNF admissions for our Medicare Plus Blue^SM and BCN Advantage^SM members.

Posted: December 2021
Lines of business: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and Blue Care Network