Bulletin: August 27, 2007

Outsourced Mailing Errors

By: Quadax, Inc.

HARP clients who use Quadax’s outsource mailing service for their patient and insurance mailings may see an increase in the items that appear on the work list for mailing address errors (OUTSTMT/OUTINS). As of September 10, 2007, Quadax will no longer mail patient statements, collection letters, or insurance claim forms to addresses for which a barcode cannot be created because of incomplete or inaccurate information.

Our outsource mailing vendor has started to check addresses with Delivery Point Validation (DPV™) software, which assigns ZIP+4 Codes only to valid addresses. Barcodes, required for automatic sorting, are then created for the ZIP+4 Codes. Quadax has been mailing some pieces that did not qualify for a barcode, such as those with house/apartment numbers or street names that were not found in the address database or had multiple matches in the database.

After implementing this change, pieces that fail any of the edits will be sent to the OUTSTMT or OUTINS work list for manual correction instead of being mailed.

Why this change is necessary

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is aggressively trying to reduce the amount of undeliverable-as-addressed (UAA) mail. Processing costs for UAA mail is estimated to be over $1.9 billion. To help recover these costs, USPS stopped giving postage automation discounts to mail with addresses that fail DPV edits on August 1, 2007. DPV software verifies that delivery points are available for all addresses. Addresses were previously assigned ZIP+4 Codes if a number fell within a range of valid house numbers (ex. 100-500 Elm Street), but now the actual number (123 Elm Street) must be validated before a ZIP+4 Code is assigned and a barcode created.

Quadax has elected not to attempt delivery of pieces with incomplete or inaccurate addresses because it is no longer cost effective to incur postage on mail that will likely not ever reach the intended recipient. Instead, these errors will be reported on the OUTSTMT or OUTINS work list beginning on September 10, 2007, and clients can decide what course of action to take. Refer to the USPS Web site for more information on tools available to improve address quality.

This change applies to all HARP clients who outsource their patient and/or insurance mailings.