On the CMS-1500 claim form, Box 17 names the provider who referred, ordered, or supervised the services being billed, and Boxes 17a and 17b carry that provider's identifiers. This guide explains what each box means and where Pabau takes the values from.
NOTE: This article is part of the US Insurance Billing Additional Resources series, which walks through every box of the CMS-1500. If you are new to claims in Pabau, start with Creating a US Professional (CMS 1500) Claim.
Box 17 — Name of referring provider or other source
Box 17 holds the name of the provider who sent the patient for the services on the claim. The small cell to the left of the name carries a two-letter qualifier for the provider's role — DN (referring provider), DK (ordering provider), or DQ (supervising provider) — and only one such provider can be reported per claim. The box is situational: most routine claims leave it empty, but some payers require a referring provider on specialist and lab claims.
How Pabau fills it
Open the claim and expand the Providers section. Next to the rendering provider you will find the referring provider fields: Referring first name, Referring last name, and Referring NPI. Type the first and last name exactly as they should appear on the claim; the fields are optional, so leave them empty when there was no referral. Pabau's fields cover the referring provider, which is the most common case and the first in the NUCC's priority order.
Boxes 17a & 17b — Referring provider IDs
Box 17b holds the referring provider's NPI, the standard ten-digit national provider identifier. Box 17a is for an additional, non-NPI identifier (such as a state license number) with its own qualifier; it is only relevant when a payer specifically asks for a legacy ID.
How Pabau fills it
Enter the ten-digit NPI in the Referring NPI field of the same Providers section, and include it whenever you fill in the name. Pabau always leaves 17a blank — the NPI is the identifier payers expect today. If a payer insists on a legacy ID in 17a, add it in the Claim.MD portal after sending (Manage Claim), or hand-fill the printed form.
On the electronic claim: the referring provider's name and NPI travel in Loop 2310A of the 837P file.
TIP: If a payer rejects a claim for a missing referring provider, fill in the name and NPI in the Providers section and send it again — resubmissions reuse the same claim identity, so Claim.MD updates the original claim instead of creating a duplicate.
To follow your claim after it is sent, see Tracking Electronic Claim Submissions.