Dan,
Good advice. However, there are some "gotchas" in the HIPAA implementation
Guides (the 837 is the health care claim transaction) that are deep deep
potholes for the uninformed. For example, there's no such thing in a HIPAA
guide as an "optional" use segment, element or code. All constructs are
either "required", "not used", or "situational." This is only for
starters.... There are also 3 different implementation guides for the 837,
depending on the type of claim being submitted.
Rachel
Shikhar,
I went through the same panic years ago when my boss asked me to
take over the part-time (Ha!) EDI Administrator job here. I am a systems
programmer responsible for our Unisys (Sperry) Mainframe. I understood
operating systems, multitasking, and compiler software. EDI was a strange
animal to me. Maybe through my experiences you can form an action plan of
your own.
First thing I tried was reading the standards manuals for the
transaction sets we were trading. Like you, they were <sarcasm on> a big
help <sarcasm off>. What got me going and understanding EDI was this:
Take the mapping and administration courses offered by your EDI
software vendor. I took the Unisys courses taught by Jim Jack, an excellent
instructor, and later the St. Paul Commerce, now TIE Commerce, courses under
Walter Ralston, another excellent instructor and resource.
Join a EDI User's Group. I believe NEECOM is near you. I drove
from Iowa to Milwaukee to attend meetings of the Bar Code and EDI User's
council. (Where I live in Iowa, Milwaukee was closer than Des Moines.) I
made contacts and asked questions.
Lastly, I wrote new guides to the transaction sets we were using.
It forces you to interact with the application programmers to understand
what information they are looking for and how they get it from the files
your EDI translator creates.
I don't know if you have to deal with a VAN or track documents.
That is a whole 'nother lesson. Good luck.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Shikhar Srivastava"
> I am a total newbie in this field ( EDI), new on the list and know almost
> nothing about EDI. This is a new responsibility I have been given. So
> please forgive my ignorance.
>
> I am supposed to do something with our EDI operations , maps etc.
>
> So I started with getting hold of the Implementation guide for ANSI 837
> transaction set, and that is really big.
> These guides assume certain level of familiarity and understanding on how
> these transactions ( EDI Txns in general ) work. ( Looping, Hierarchical
> level etc etc). I do not have that knowledge.
> Now the question :
> (i) I am looking for some resource ( a primer ) on how EDI files are
> structured and How to read them. I understand that this will depend on
> implementation so I am looking for general info.
> (ii) Something on how to read an ANSI X12 implementation guide
>
> I have already wasted a lot of time looking on web for this but they were
> not exactly what I was looking for. Either they showed how /why of EDI or
> they provided just the implementation ( e.g. wpc-edi.com ) .
>
> I know I can find a lot for xml on web , but for EDI information sources
> look vague. Please help me.
>
> Thanks
>
> Shikhar Srivastava
>
> =======================================================================
> To contact the list owner: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Archives at http://www.mail-archive.com/edi-l%40listserv.ucop.edu/
=======================================================================
To contact the list owner: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Archives at http://www.mail-archive.com/edi-l%40listserv.ucop.edu/
=======================================================================
To contact the list owner: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Archives at http://www.mail-archive.com/edi-l%40listserv.ucop.edu/
