File acknowledgement (ACK)

Availity automatically sends a negative file acknowledgement (ACK) to your organization's ReceiveFiles folder when a submitted batch file fails Availity's proprietary validation, most commonly when the file format is invalid.

File extensions

• .ACK (delimited file)

• .ACT (human readable text file) – This is the default format.

When is this response file sent?

Within 24 hours, and only if errors occur.

• Negative file acknowledgements are not optional.

• Positive file acknowledgements are not sent.

If you do not receive the acknowledgement, please contact Availity Client Services.

Additional details

This response file reports errors in acceptable file format. The following criteria are validated:

• The first three characters in the file are ISA.

• The ISA segment is valid.

Next steps

When a file acknowledgement (ACK) is generated, processing of the batch file terminates. You must correct and resubmit the entire batch, using a new interchange control number.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                      AVAILITY PROPRIETARY ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Customer ID: 0012345                    File Status: REJECTED 
Date Received: 2020-01-01               Time Received: 10:58:01.101 
Filename: 837_202001011058.txt    
File Control Number: 000000000   
****************************************************************************
1E - Availity does not recognize the interchange data starting at position 0 as valid. 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                 END OF REPORT                                 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

1|CCYY-MM-DD – Date Received|HH.MM.SS.SSS – Time Received|Availity Customer ID|CCYYMMDDXXXXXXXX - Batch ID|000000000
1E|Error message

1|2020-07-15|12.06.05.726|0012345|2009031511593700|000000000
1E|Availity does not recognize the interchange data starting at position 0 as valid.