What is Remittance advice?
The document or file in which a payer explains a payment: which claims it covers, what was allowed, and what was adjusted.
Definition
A remittance advice accompanies a payment and accounts for it claim by claim. It reconciles a single check or EFT deposit against the many claims that deposit pays, which is what makes payment posting possible: the deposit says how much arrived, the remittance says which claims it belongs to.
Electronically this is the 835/ERA; on paper it is a provider EOB. Either way the remittance is the source of truth for denial reasons, allowed amounts, and patient responsibility — a bank deposit alone tells you nothing about any of them.
Why it matters
Unposted or unmatched remittances are where AR quietly goes stale: the money arrived, the claims still look open, and the follow-up team works claims that were paid weeks ago.
Related terms
See this in your own numbers
PayerVista turns the remittance files your payers already send into a live view of claims, denials, payer performance, and outstanding AR — in minutes, with no implementation project.