Bulletin: January 3, 2008

Outsourced Mailing Change

By: TechComm Services Manager

Due to a misunderstanding with Quadax’s outsource printing vendor, some patient statements, collection letters, and insurance claim forms were mailed even though they were not barcoded. Quadax expected that only pieces with barcodes would be mailed, but unfortunately, some with incomplete or inaccurate addresses were mailed and subsequently returned to sender.  

The problem occurred because of a misunderstanding about the address editing process. Barcodes are created for pieces whose addresses have been verified with Delivery Point Validation (DPV™) software, which assigns ZIP+4 Codes to valid addresses. Pieces that fail the DPV edits are not mailed and are sent to the OUTSTMT or OUTINS work lists for correction. However, the outsource vendor performs some initial address editing before the DPV editing. If a mailing address failed the initial edits because of missing or invalid apartment/house numbers or unknown street names, DPV editing was not performed. Because these pieces never reached the DPV editing stage, the process that stops them from being mailed was not triggered.

This resulted in delivery attempts for certain pieces of mail that should have been held. Before DPV editing began in September 2007, pieces failing these initial edits were also mailed, so there should not have been an increase in returned mail, just not as much of a decrease as expected. The vendor has revised the process, so all pieces without barcodes will not be mailed and will appear on a mailing errors work list, effective 01/03/2008.

We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience this may have caused.