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N252 Remark Code: Attending Provider Name Missing

N252 means the attending provider's name on the claim was missing, incomplete, or invalid. The payer needs the full last and first name of the physician responsible for the patient's care, matching the NPI reported for that clinician.

Quick facts

Code
N252 (RARC N252)
Status
Active In use since December 2, 2004.
Code set
Remittance Advice Remark Codes (RARC)
Group codes
  • CO (Contractual Obligation): The facility must correct the name and resubmit. The adjusted amount is a provider-correctable error, not patient responsibility.
Official description
Missing/incomplete/invalid attending provider name.
X12 Remittance Advice Remark Codes, retrieved September 25, 2026
Last verified
against the official X12 list.

What N252 means

Every inpatient and most outpatient facility claims name an attending provider: the physician or practitioner who had primary responsibility for the patient during the billed service. The payer uses that name, together with the attending NPI, to confirm who delivered or oversaw care. N252 tells you the name portion failed its edit.

You will usually see N252 beside CARC 16. The service itself was not judged on coverage or medical necessity; the claim simply could not be finished with the name as submitted.

Why the name fails

Name edits are simple, which makes the causes easy to spot once you look:

  • Blank fields. The attending section was populated with an NPI but no last or first name, often because an interface only mapped the identifier.
  • Formatting. Credentials such as “MD” or “DO” were typed into the last-name field, or the first and last names were reversed.
  • Name change. The physician changed a legal name and NPPES was updated, but your provider file still carries the old one (or vice versa).
  • Wrong person. The admitting or consulting physician was listed instead of the attending, and the name does not line up with the NPI the payer expected.

Steps to resolve

  1. Pull the remittance line and confirm which claim and dates carry N252.
  2. Check the record for the attending physician of record during that stay or visit.
  3. Look up the NPI in NPPES and copy the legal last and first name exactly as registered.
  4. Correct the attending name in your billing system’s provider table, not just on this claim, so future claims are fixed too.
  5. Rebill as a replacement (frequency code 7) with the payer’s original claim number. See our CARC 16 walkthrough for more on corrected claims.

How to prevent it

Pull attending physician data from a single maintained provider master rather than free-text entry at registration. Add a claim scrubber rule that requires a first and last name whenever an attending NPI is present, and flag names containing credentials or punctuation that payers commonly reject.

Codes that may appear with N252

  • CO-16 (Claim/service lacks information or has submission/billing error(s).): The claim has missing or invalid information; N252 identifies the attending provider name as that information.
  • CO-208 (National Provider Identifier - Not matched.): When the name and NPI do not belong together, the payer may also report an NPI match failure.
  • N253 (Missing/incomplete/invalid attending provider primary identifier.): Covers the attending provider's NPI rather than the name.
  • N251 (Missing/incomplete/invalid attending provider taxonomy.): Covers the attending provider's taxonomy code.
  • N261 (Missing/incomplete/invalid operating provider name.): The same name problem for the operating provider on a surgical facility claim.

N252 FAQ

Where is the attending name entered on a UB-04?

Form locator 76 holds the attending provider's NPI, an optional secondary identifier, and the last and first name. The 837I carries the same details in the attending provider section.

Does the name have to match NPPES exactly?

Payers compare it against their own records, which are usually built from NPPES and enrollment data. Use the legal name as registered, without nicknames or credentials in the name fields.

Do I need a corrected claim or a new one?

Most payers want a replacement claim with frequency code 7 and the original claim number. A few ask for a fresh submission when the original was rejected as unprocessable, so check the payer's rules.