Issued by: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)

Issue Date: August 01, 2017

Program Area: Vendor Management, Payments, and Collections (VMPC)

Question: What is an ACH Debit Block and how can it be prevented/removed?

Answer: A Pay.gov transaction labeled "retired" indicates that your financial Institution has an Automated Clearing House (ACH) Debit Block on the bank account used in the referenced transaction. Automatic debits to a business account may be blocked by the bank through a security feature called an ACH Debit Block, ACH Positive Pay, or ACH Fraud Prevention Filters. To prevent future blocks on transactions please follow the instructions below to remove the Debit Block. To remove the ACH Debit Block, an organization must provide a list of allowed ACH Company IDs to enable automatic debits from authorized companies. When working with the U.S. Government, these company ID codes are referred to as the Agency Location Code (ALC+2). Contributing Entities must contact their bank to add the ALC+2 to their list of allowed ACH Company IDs for debit transactions. Additionally, if necessary, provide the following information to your bank to prevent debit blocking on payments processed through Pay.gov on your dunning letter/Invoice: - ACH Company Name: USDEPTHHSCMS - Agency Company ID: 7505008014

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