Claim Submission & Payment
Last updated on August 12, 2025Teleplan
Practitioners submit claims for services provided to beneficiaries to the Medical Services Plan (MSP) through the Teleplan system.
Teleplan is a web based telecommunications system which allows practitioners to securely submit claims, notes, retrieve remittance information and check patient eligibility over an encrypted Internet connection from MSP.
Billing and Payments
MSP accepts claims for medically required services that are MSP benefits, provided by practitioners who are enrolled with MSP and in good standing with the licensing body governing their profession.
MSP pays practitioner claims in accordance with the provisions of the Medicare Protection Act and Regulations, the relevant payment schedule, and MSP claims policy and procedures. The fees in the payment schedules are established through consultation between Medical Services Commission and the respective professional associations.
Assignment of New Teleplan Data Centre Numbers
Data Centre numbers for practitioner claims are currently defined throughout the MSP Claims system as an alphanumeric character field of five in length, beginning with T, M or V. No later than July 31, 2022, the format of Data Centre numbers will be expanded to include alphanumeric strings starting with other letters.
This work will include:
- Updating MoH and HIBC systems and processes that make use of Data Centre numbers, to accommodate numbers starting with other letters; and
- Updates to the Teleplan specifications.
Other Data Centre number parameters, including field length, will remain the same. Impacts to internal and external stakeholders are expected to be minimal. Data Centres already issued a number will retain those numbers with no impacts.
Current Teleplan specifications require the Data Centre number to start with T, M or V. Stakeholders whose code requires the field to start with T, M or V, or whose system logic depends on a value starting with T, M or V, must reconfigure the software to accept other letters as soon as possible.
No joint system or end-to-end testing is planned for this transition. Stakeholders are expected to complete testing internally to confirm that coding and configuration allow the new Data Centre number by no later than the deployment date above.
MSP Service Location Codes
| Location Code | Location | Location Description |
|---|---|---|
| B | Community Health Centre | Service is provided in an inter-professional primary care centre that integrates primary care, health promotion and community well-being services as well as a broader range of social supports. |
| C | Residential Care/ Assisted Living Residence | Service is provided in a licensed residential care facility or registered assisted living residence (Note: Excludes small “group homes” where no professional health care support/care is available and includes extended care facility within a hospital). |
| D | Diagnostic Facility | Service is provided in a facility that primarily/exclusively provides diagnostic testing and has been granted an MSC Certificate of Approval (Note: Excludes diagnostic tests provided in practitioner’s office. Also excludes diagnostic services provided in/by hospital and/or D&T centre facilities). |
| E | Hospital Emergency Room (unscheduled patient) | Service is provided in a hospital emergency department for a patient who presents for emergent or urgent treatment (Note: Excludes hospital outpatients who receive services on a scheduled basis within an emergency department – see Hospital Outpatient) |
| F | Private Medical/ Surgical Facility | Service is provided within a private medical/surgery facility accredited by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC. |
| G | Hospital, Day Care (surgery) | Service is provided within a hospital to a patient who is a day care surgery patient (Note: Includes all patients who are in hospital on a day care basis primarily to receive a “procedure”. Excludes scheduled services – see Hospital – Out-Patient). |
| I | Hospital (inpatient) | Service is provided for a patient who is an inpatient of a hospital (note: excludes patients located within a designated “extended care unit” within a hospital – see Residential Care/ Assisted Living Residence). |
| J | First Nations Primary Health Care Clinic | Service is provided in a clinic that provides inter-professionalbased continuum of care that integrates health services, disease prevention and management, population health promotion, traditional and mental wellness, and social determinants of health, as well as embodies attributes of cultural safety and humility, trauma-informed care, and integration to First Nations communities. |
| K | Hybrid Primary Care Practice | Service is provided in a primary care practice that includes both longitudinal primary care services and walk-in/ episodic care services. |
| L | Longitudinal Primary Care Practice | Service is provided in a primary care practice (e.g., Patient Medical Home) that provides longitudinal primary care services by a family physician, group of family physicians, or group of primary care providers (FPs and NPs). Family physicians and nurse practitioners with a focused practice or providing consultative expertise (e.g., addiction medicine, sports medicine, or women’s health) are included under this code. Family physicians providing care in a shared office with non-family physicians are included under this code. |
| M | Mental Health Centre | Service is provided in a publicly administered mental health centre to an outpatient (Note: Excludes mental health facilities that are primarily residential in nature – see Residential Care/Assisted Living. Includes CRESST Facilities). |
| N | Health Care Practitioner Office (non-physician) | Service is provided in an office where non-physician health care practitioners, e.g., nurse practitioner, midwife, supplementary benefit provider, are providing care. |
| P | Hospital Outpatient | Service is provided in outpatient and/or ambulatory clinics where outpatients receive scheduled services, including emergency department, or any other hospital setting where outpatients receive services (Note: Excludes day care surgical patients). |
| Q | Specialist Physician Office | Service is provided in a physician office that provides health care services by one or more non-family physicians (e.g., Royal College or College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC specialist) |
| R | Patient's Private Home | Service is provided in a patient’s own home (note: includes services provided in “group homes” where on-site nursing or other health professional support care is not provided, but excludes assisted living residences and other residential facilities – see Residential Care/Assisted Living Residence). |
| T | Practitioner’s Office, in publicly administered facility | Service is provided in a practitioner’s publicly administered office located within a publicly administered health care facility (e.g., Hospital, Primary Care Centre/Clinic, D&T Centre, etc.). |
| U | Urgent and Primary Care Centre (Ministry-designated) | Service is provided in a centre that provides longitudinal full-service primary care and attachment in addition to meeting the episodic urgent primary care needs for both attached and unattached patients. |
| V | Virtual Care | Service is provided within a practice that provides exclusively virtual care as a method of delivering health care diagnosis and treatment services. Does not include other clinics or centers where virtual care is provided in addition to in-person care (e.g., a Longitudinal Primary Care Practice or Walk-In/Episodic Care Clinic offering virtual care services and in-person services would not use V). |
| W | Walk-In/Episodic Care Clinic | Service is provided in a practice that provides exclusively episodic primary care services. |
| Z | Other, e.g., accident site or in an ambulance | Service is provided in any other location, such as a temporary community or school clinic, ambulance, accident site, etc. |
Change to newly issued practitioner and payee numbers value, and specialty codes value: Effective June 1, 2022
A forecast conducted by the Ministry of Health (MoH) and Health Insurance BC (HIBC) has determined that available practitioner and payee numbers will be depleted by 2023. Practitioner and payee numbers are currently defined throughout the MSP Claims system as a character field of five in length, with values ranging from 00000 to 99999. Once depleted, it will no longer be possible to register new practitioners in BC.
To expand the range of available practitioner and payee numbers, new numbers issued starting June 1, 2022 will be issued as alphanumeric values. Current Teleplan specifications require the practitioner and payee number to be in character format. Teleplan vendors whose code limits the field to numeric characters, or whose system logic depends on a numeric-only value, must reconfigure their software to accept alphanumeric values by June 1, 2022.
MoH conducted an additional forecast of available practitioner specialty codes. Projections indicate that a minimum of 20 new specialty codes will be needed over the next five years, resulting in a shortage of available codes.
To expand the range of available specialty codes, new codes issued starting June 1, 2022, will also be issued as alphanumeric values.
If you have any questions or if you experience any issues submitting claims on or after June 1, 2022, please contact your Teleplan vendor; or contact HIBC.
Explanatory Codes
In certain circumstances, MSP may reject, reduce or refuse payment on a claim submitted by a health care practitioner. In each case, explanatory codes accompany the rejection, reduction or refusal in order to provide the practitioner with the reason for their claim not being paid in full.
Designated Holidays and Close-Off Dates
When practitioners are preparing to submit their claims to MSP, it is important to note the MSP-designated holidays and close-off dates as they impact claims submission. Designated holidays impact certain claims such as the Out-of-Office Hours Premiums fee items while close-off dates are the designated semi-monthly cut-offs for claims submission through Teleplan. Claims should be submitted by close-off dates in order to be processed on the next remittance statement.