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N50 Remark Code: Missing or Invalid Discharge Info

N50 means discharge information on the claim was missing, incomplete, or invalid. For facility claims, that usually involves the patient's discharge status, the discharge or through date, or the discharge hour.

Quick facts

Code
N50 (RARC N50)
Status
Active In use since January 1, 2000; last modified February 28, 2003.
Code set
Remittance Advice Remark Codes (RARC)
Group codes
  • CO (Contractual Obligation): The claim is denied or returned as a correctable billing error. It is not a patient balance.
  • PI (Payer Initiated Reduction): Some government payers use a payer-initiated adjustment for the same correctable problem.
Official description
Missing/incomplete/invalid discharge information.
X12 Remittance Advice Remark Codes, retrieved September 25, 2026
Last verified
against the official X12 list.

What N50 means

Institutional claims describe the end of a stay as carefully as the beginning. The UB-04 reports the statement through date, the discharge hour (form locator 16), and the patient discharge status (form locator 17), and electronic 837I claims carry the same data. N50 says one or more of those details was blank, inconsistent, or not a valid value.

It usually appears with CARC 16. The payer is not questioning the stay; it simply cannot process the claim with the discharge information as submitted.

Common causes

  • A discharge status code was omitted or is not valid for the bill type.
  • The status does not agree with other data, for example a transfer status with no receiving facility information where the payer expects it.
  • The discharge hour was missing or formatted incorrectly.
  • The through date does not match the discharge date recorded in the chart.
  • An interim bill used a final-discharge status, or a final bill used a “still a patient” status.

How to fix it

  1. Check the discharge record for the actual disposition, date, and time.
  2. Choose the correct status code based on where the patient went, such as home, another hospital, a skilled nursing facility, or home health care.
  3. Align related fields, including the through date, type of bill frequency, and discharge hour.
  4. Submit a corrected institutional claim using the payer’s replacement process.

How to prevent it

Discharge status errors are common because the final destination is not always known when the discharge order is written. Have case management confirm the actual disposition before coding, and use claim edits that compare status codes to bill type and dates. Periodic audits of transfer statuses help catch errors that do not trigger denials but still affect payment.

Codes that may appear with N50

  • CO-16 (Claim/service lacks information or has submission/billing error(s).): Required information is missing; N50 identifies the discharge data.
  • MA43 (Missing/incomplete/invalid patient status.): The patient status code is missing or invalid.
  • N317 (Missing/incomplete/invalid discharge hour.): The discharge hour specifically is missing or invalid.
  • N318 (Missing/incomplete/invalid discharge or end of care date.): The discharge or end-of-care date is missing or invalid.
  • N459 (Missing Discharge Summary.): The discharge summary document is missing, rather than a claim field.

N50 FAQ

Why does the discharge status matter so much?

Payers use it to price stays and apply rules for transfers, deaths, and discharges to post-acute care. An incorrect status can change payment even when it does not cause a denial.

What if the patient is still in the facility?

Interim bills use a status indicating the patient is still a patient, and the through date reflects the billing period rather than a discharge. Make sure the type of bill matches.

Is N50 used on professional claims?

Rarely. It relates mainly to institutional claims, where discharge data is a required part of the claim.