Sign in

Eligibility dates and the right payer · Last verified 2026-08-30

CARC 289 denial code on dental claims

Independent publisher · Drafted with AI assistance, verified against primary sources · Credentialed review pending

CARC 289 is the “Neither plan covers it” code on a dental remittance. A plan term controls, so verify the plan and the facts before appealing.

Group code: X12 places no group-code restriction on 289. A group code always travels with a CARC, and it — not the CARC — assigns financial responsibility, so read the one on your remittance rather than assuming.

Registry entry: X12 Claim Adjustment Reason Code 289 — active, with no deactivation date. Read on the list published 2025-11-01.

Verdict

Structural — verify the plan terms

The denial reflects a plan term such as an exclusion or exhausted limit. Verify that the payer used the correct plan and facts before deciding how the contract assigns responsibility.

Both plans' terms would have to change for this to pay. What is worth verifying is that both were actually adjudicated, and against the right plans — a stale plan on either side produces this result wrongly.

The appealability verdicts on these pages are Dentovio's editorial classification. No standards body or payer publishes an appealability taxonomy: X12 defines what a code means, not what to do about it. Each verdict is built from the code's own mechanics and the payer and federal documents cited on the page, and it is a starting point for triage rather than a prediction of any outcome.

What it means in dental

Neither the dental plan nor the medical plan covers the services, so no benefit is available on either side.

The terminal case of the dental-medical crossover workflow. Where 254, 270, and 290 route a claim between the two carriers, 289 says the routing is over.

What to do

  1. 1.Confirm both carriers adjudicated the current plans, not terminated ones
  2. 2.Check whether the service was submitted in the format each carrier requires; a rejected format is not a coverage decision
  3. 3.Move to the patient conversation with both determinations in hand

Remark codes verified with this CARC

No source read for this page pairs a remark code with CARC 289. X12 defines no CARC-to-RARC pairings at all: payer crosswalks are specific to that payer's own internal reason codes, and the CAQH CORE combination list binds only payers operating inside its business scenarios. Read the remark code on your own remittance.

Read with this code

Sources

Last verified 2026-08-30. Dentovio is an independent publisher — not a payer, the ADA, X12, CAQH CORE, or any government agency. Code meanings and remark-code meanings on this page are Dentovio's own wording, written from the official X12 Claim Adjustment Reason Code and Remittance Advice Remark Code lists and linked back to them; X12 holds the copyright in those lists and its descriptions are not reproduced here. CDT codes are referenced by number only; CDT is the American Dental Association's copyrighted code set and this page does not reproduce ADA descriptors. Appealability verdicts are Dentovio editorial classification, not a standard. Every fact traces to the code steward's registry, a federal rule or manual, a HIPAA operating rule, an association publication, or a named payer's own document — never to a billing blog. This page was drafted with AI assistance and verified against the primary sources linked here. It has not been reviewed by a credentialed dental billing specialist, attorney, or clinician. Educational billing reference only — not billing, legal, or clinical advice. Plan contracts control individual outcomes, and processing policies usually live in the payer's provider manual rather than in the signed agreement. How this data is verified