Berkley Technology Underwriters (BTU) and its clearinghouse vendor, Carisk, have created a bureaucratic circus that defies logic. Because of an inexplicable technical glitch, Carisk rejects perfectly valid, compliant BTU electronic bills (e-bills) from providers treating injured workers.

However, instead of addressing the issue, BTU and Carisk are forcing providers to go old-school and mail paper bills, flagrantly violating California law, which mandates that claims administrators must accept e-bills from workers’ compensation providers. It’s 2025—yet BTU and Carisk are stuck in the 1980s, insisting on snail mail because their e-billing technology is having a tantrum.

Initially, Carisk told daisyBill that the e-bill rejections were due to BTU’s bizarre obsession with claim number spacing. Yes, you read that correctly—spacing. BTU requires claim numbers to be spaced just so, or else they throw a fit and reject the bill. It’s like demanding that checks be written in calligraphy before cashing them.

But wait, there’s more. Even after daisyBill went to the trouble of adjusting the claim number spacing to BTU’s peculiar specifications, Carisk continued to reject the e-bills. The following are the attempts made to get BTU to pay providers that treated BTU’s injured workers:

• daisyBill has resubmitted the rejected e-bills once.
• Carisk claims to have resubmitted the rejected e-bills three times.
• Carisk says they even opened “a ticket with the carrier [BTU].”
• And BTU? Radio silence. Not a word, a whisper, or even a carrier pigeon in response.

In short, BTU and Carisk have created a bureaucratic Bermuda Triangle where compliant e-bills disappear, and nobody seems interested in finding them. Meanwhile, providers are left in the lurch, and California law is blatantly ignored.

It’s not just absurd—it’s downright Kafkaesque.

BTU’s Hyper-Specific Claim Number Spacing

In e-billing, a clearinghouse accepts and responds to e-bills on the claims administrator’s behalf. A ‘277’ Acknowledgement (277 ACK) is an electronic “receipt” that confirms the clearinghouse received a provider’s e-bill.

• A 277 ACK indicating ‘Accept’ means that the clearinghouse forwarded the e-bill to the claims administrator for processing.
• A 277 ACK indicating ‘Reject’ means that the clearinghouse did not accept the e-bill or forward it to the claims administrator for processing.
  

As the screenshot below shows, Carisk rejected a clean, compliant BTU e-bill submission, noting, “Claim failed submission because Claim Number, Date of Injury, and/or Date of Birth failed Eligibility Lookup.”

daisyBill contacted Carisk who informed our agent that all bills for BTU must include two spaces between certain elements of the claim number. According to Carisk, this clearinghouse rejects BTU e-bills when claim numbers are not formatted correctly as follows: ‘79 WC 999999999999.’

With no other choice, daisyBill updated our billing software to alert clients to BTU claim number spacing requirements and “corrected” all claim numbers to adhere to this (absurd) requirement. DaisyBill resubmitted the e-bills to Carisk.

However, as in the example below, Carisk continued to reject the BTU e-bills even though the claim number spacing met BTU’s (outlandish) standards.

Carisk made multiple attempts to resolve the issue—four resubmissions, continuous follow-ups, and even opened a “ticket” with BTU. It appears Carisk didn’t ignore the e-bill rejection problem but was trapped in the same bureaucratic nightmare as providers trying to get their bills paid for treating injured workers.

However, Carisk’s efforts reveal a harsh reality: a clearinghouse is only as effective as the insurer’s willingness to cooperate.

The real problem is BTU's refusal to comply with California law. Their refusal has turned a simple e-billing process into a farce. California law mandates e-bill acceptance to streamline workers' compensation billing, yet BTU’s defiance forces providers back to outdated paper and mailing methods.

Below is a table documenting daisyBill's repeated efforts to get BTU to comply with California law and accept e-bills and pay providers treating injured workers. Despite every attempt to meet BTU's claim number spacing demands and Carisk’s multiple resubmissions, e-bills continue to be rejected, exposing a systemic failure that only BTU can resolve.

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