February 2006 Newsletter

Xpeditor in 2006: An eXciting year ahead!

By: PC/Internet Development

The increase in accolades that Xpeditor is receiving throughout the region is both exciting and gratifying. We have a well-rounded and efficient product with features that often go beyond new clients’ expectations. However, we have no plans to simply stand still. Looking at the year ahead, there is much we can do to continue to further refine our products and services—and therefore our clients’ EDI experience. 

Projects for 2006 align along three major themes:  Reduce, Improve, and Code. 

Reduce

In order to expand the value of our services and expand our capacity to move ahead in new directions, we want to reduce in a couple of areas.

First, we want to reduce Tech Production, or the support events that must be handled by our EDI Tech staff. We realize every event that falls into our Tech queue represents a failed process in the Xpeditor flow, and failed processes delay the claim flow. The EDI Tech department works diligently to resolve the issues in a timely manner, but we’d like to do better—we’d prefer these issues never happen. Our Systems staff has been gathering event data from the Tech department in order to analyze common problems and their underlying causes. Our programming staff will then focus on ways to improve our software and procedures that will reduce these processing errors.

Secondly, we want to reduce the number of questions that are asked as a result of incomplete or unclear information in Xpeditor. We would like to improve the information that Xpeditor supplies in order to improve users’ understanding. With better user understanding will come greater user productivity. We have many ideas for improvements in this area.  A major focus will be on documentation related to the claim edits. Since plans are still in the early design phase, the details are limited. We are hoping to mimic and improve on the medical necessity documentation currently available. When the system is complete, users should be able to right-click on an error message, select “error information,” and be redirected to a web page on the Quadax domain that displays all the information about the edit. Expect other improvements as well, but this edit detail interface will be the most exciting to many of our users.

Improve

In each of the following areas, we want to take our service to you to the next level—to go beyond “good” and move into “outstanding.” 

Weekly Code Table Updates and Quality Assurance Process. The automated software update methodology in Xpeditor saves clients and Quadax many hours per week. The process performs flawlessly 96% of the time. Quadax actively monitors the update process looking for issues, and since Xpeditor is a hugely complex environment, that’s no simple matter. Every installation is unique; the update process performs 13 individual tasks, and some tasks repeat for dozens of database tables. Given that level of complexity, 96% is a respectable success rate for an automated process in such an intricate environment. But, Quadax would like to do better. We are reviewing common errors and are looking for ways to improve each of the processes involved.

Payer List.  The payer list at Quadax.com is about to be revamped. We will be rearranging and enhancing the data presented to create an improved web site. Expect improved searching and sorting with more helpful information displayed on the main grid.

Payer Matching.  The improvements to the payer list will be nice, but the real step forward will come when we revamp the payer matching process in Xpeditor. Quadax is reviewing some ideas to link Xpeditor payer matching with the Quadax web site. The goal is to produce a better interface that will reduce confusion and assist users in selecting the proper match.

Information flow.  The Quadax web site, including the ASP Portal, is becoming a virtual library of valuable information. We would like to take advantage of these resources by adding more links within Xpeditor to the information on our web site, allowing users fast and easy access to helpful information.

Code

The need to write new programming code to add to Xpeditor’s capabilities or adjust existing capabilities in response to new payer and industry requirements is one project that will always require attention. Looking at the year ahead, we see several events that will require coding.  

UB04. We have been monitoring the progress on the UB04 for some time, and are now studying specifications and designing the project that will implement the UB04 into Xpeditor. This will be a major change to Xpeditor, affecting many screens and most of the processes. Quadax will strive to implement these changes as smoothly as possible. Our project plans include steps for creating documentation and education of our users to facilitate an easy transition. You can expect to see activity on this project in the third quarter.

National Provider ID.  NPI will be another major event of the year. The project plan, roll out, and timeline will be similar to the UB04. 

Coordination of Benefits.  The complexities associated with COB claim processing have presented numerous time-consuming challenges for the EDI staff, from programming to transmissions. Now that users are entering these claims and receiving payment, we are confident that the basic interface is functional, and we are ready to add improvements. The first enhancement will be an improved interface. We plan to add logic to Filter to scrape this information from incoming 837 files (and possibly print files). We will enhance the ASP (Automatic Secondary Payer) process to carry the remittance data onto the secondary claim.  Both of these enhancements are the logical next phase for the COB interface. They were designed in the original project plan as phase two development.

The next enhancement in the COB project will be to create a CMS-1500 COB data screen that functions similarly to the UB version.  The phase-two enhancements mentioned above will be coded for both the UB and 1500 screens.

Browser-based Xpeditor. XPweb is a browser-based version of Xpeditor coded in ASP.NET. It runs on an IIS web server housed at the database location. Xpeditor Enterprise clients will be able to take advantage of this enhanced interface through the use of a web server at their location. For those clients using our hosted version of Xpeditor, Xp Online, this browser-based version will eliminate the need for Citrix. At this point, the software is still in an early prototype phase, with just a handful of screens functional to some degree. Only a limited number of people within Quadax have seen this prototype, but I have had several requests for private demos and many requests for timelines. The excitement is already building! We will release more information as we progress.

2006 is going to be an exciting and busy year for everyone.  By reducing the potential for frustration or confusion, by improving Xpeditor processes, and by coding new interfaces, the EDI Systems group will take our clients’ EDI experience to a whole new level. With the proper teamwork and communication, we will be able to save you time and effort, improve your workflow, your reimbursement, and your management overall of your transaction processing.