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N330 Remark Code: Patient Death Date Missing or Invalid

N330 means the patient's date of death was missing, incomplete, or invalid. The payer either expected a death date (for example, because its records show the patient is deceased) or found the reported date inconsistent with the dates of service.

Quick facts

Code
N330 (RARC N330)
Status
Active In use since December 2, 2004.
Code set
Remittance Advice Remark Codes (RARC)
Group codes
  • CO (Contractual Obligation): The claim was denied for incorrect or missing data about the patient's death. The provider corrects it; the estate or family is not billed for this adjustment.
Official description
Missing/incomplete/invalid patient death date.
X12 Remittance Advice Remark Codes, retrieved September 25, 2026
Last verified
against the official X12 list.

What N330 means

Payers compare every service date to what they know about the patient’s life and death. N330 is used when the date of death on the claim is absent where it is required, is incomplete, or conflicts with other data. The most common conflict is a service date that falls after the reported death, or a patient discharge status that indicates death with no date given.

N330 generally explains CARC 16. If the date is present but earlier than a billed service, you may also see CARC 13.

Common causes

  • Discharge status says “expired” but no date was sent. Institutional claims that report a death discharge status usually need a matching date.
  • Date of death typed incorrectly, for example the year of the previous admission.
  • Service lines after the death date, often from a recurring order or supply billed on schedule without being stopped.
  • Payer records show a death the patient did not have, creating a conflict with an otherwise valid claim.
  • Date left blank on a professional claim for a service on the day the patient died, when the payer’s edit expects it.

What to do

  1. Pull the death certificate information, the discharge summary, or the hospital record to confirm the actual date of death.
  2. Compare it with every date of service on the claim. Remove or correct any line that falls after the date of death.
  3. Make sure the discharge status or patient status agrees with the date. A mismatch between them can trigger the same remark again.
  4. Enter the date in the patient information portion of the claim and resubmit as a corrected claim (frequency code 7) with the original claim number.
  5. If the payer’s records are wrong, call provider services, document the call reference, and ask how they want the correction submitted.

How to prevent it

When a patient dies, update the practice management system right away so recurring charges and supply orders stop. Hospices, home health agencies, and facilities should have a discharge workflow that records the date and time of death once and feeds it to every claim that needs it.

Codes that may appear with N330

  • CO-16 (Claim/service lacks information or has submission/billing error(s).): Information is missing or invalid; N330 identifies the patient's date of death.
  • CO-13 (The date of death precedes the date of service.): The reported date of death precedes the date of service, which means one of the two dates is wrong.
  • N329 (Missing/incomplete/invalid patient birth date.): Covers the patient's birth date, the other patient date payers validate on every claim.
  • N318 (Missing/incomplete/invalid discharge or end of care date.): Used when a discharge or end-of-care date is missing or invalid, which is often reported together with a death.
  • N299 (Missing/incomplete/invalid occurrence date(s).): Addresses missing or invalid occurrence dates on institutional claims.

N330 FAQ

When does a claim need a date of death?

When the patient died on or before the last date billed, such as a hospice, inpatient, or home health claim that ends with the patient's death. Payers also check it when their own records show the patient as deceased.

What if the payer's records wrongly show the patient as deceased?

Contact the payer to report the error. For Medicare, the death record usually comes from the Social Security Administration, so the patient or family may need to correct it there first.

Can services after the date of death be billed?

Generally no patient services can occur after death. If a line shows a later date, it is almost always a date-of-service error that should be corrected.