I would like to participate in the sub-subworkgroup addressing ambiguities in the IG's. I attended today's Testing Subworkgroup meeting, and here is the gist of what I heard on this topic, plus some of my further thoughts:
We discussed two approaches, one short-term and one long-term. For the short term, Kepa Zubeldia mentioned "sticky notes" that could be attached to the IG's that would remove the ambiguity regarding when to use a situationally defined item. For example, the 837P guide says on the 2000B: PAT08 (Patient Weight), "Required on claims / encounters for delivery services to report newborn's birthweight" -- but how does the receiver of a claim know when this condition has been satisfied, i.e., when the patient is a newborn? The "sticky note" could define the situation: for example, a newborn is a patient whose date of birth is within 30 days (or 60, or whatever) of the claim service date. A claim receiver could then compare the date of birth and the claim service date to determine whether or not the condition applies, and thus whether the situational edit applies. Best of all, with this unambiguous definition of the situation, every claim receiver who chooses to use this "sticky note" would arrive at the same conclusion regarding whether the claim is or is not compliant. So the short-term work for this work group could be to go through each of the situational edits in each of the guides, and develop a "sticky note" for each one that will enable every user (sender and receiver) to determine, unambiguously, when a situational condition has been satisfied. It would still be up to the user to read and apply these sticky notes in his or her edits, but at least (to the extent that the industry agrees to use these "sticky notes") it is possible to stamp out the ambiguity in the situational edits. (Does this work really belong in the WEDI SNIP Testing Subworkgroup, or are we possibly stepping on the toes of the IG developers?) For the long term, we could develop a method of codifying the "sticky notes" into the X12 implementation guides. This would enable the situational edits to be represented in the Washington Publishing tables in such a way that software developers could upload the situational edits / business rules (in the future) along with the syntax rules (available currently). Once these business rules are represented in code (rather than only in text, as they are today), they would be as standard and as unambiguous as the syntax rules are today. The implication of this is that X12 IG developers would need to bring a more rigorous approach to the development of business rules -- possibly more upfront work but a much happier outcome. Rachel Foerster and Kepa both mentioned IMPDEF as a possible method of codifying the business rules, and Rachel is willing to provide some level-setting on IMPDEF. (Even more than the short-term work above, I'm not sure whether this long-term work really belongs in the WEDI SNIP Testing Subworkgroup -- or perhaps elsewhere in WEDI SNIP -- or perhaps in the X12 committee. In any case, I think it is important work that has the potential of providing a quantum leap in IG usability.) Did other attendees, especially Kerry and Marcallee, come away from today's meeting with the same understandings as I did about stamping out ambiguities in the IGs? -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, December 19, 2002 1:49 PM To: WEDI SNIP Testing Subworkgroup List Subject: Meeting Minutes - 12/19/2002 Hello all, Below are the minutes from our meeting earlier today. 1) After our last meeting, John sent out an email message to the listserve asking for ways we could be more flexible. He got some responses from people on the West Coast asking if we could move our meeting time to later in the day. Our meetings currently start at 8:00 a.m. on the west coast. The group agreed to move the meeting to 11:30 eastern time (8:30 on the west coast) and see if we would get more participation. 2) The majority of the meeting centered around discussion of the projects that the group has in front of us. The group decided that we would concentrate on two of the seven items. Ed Hafner and John Huff will co-chair a workgroup that will address a survey to the industry for common testing issues in implementing the HIPAA transactions and code sets. Rachel Forester and Kepa Zubeldia offered to assist with the group. John also has some email responses from people that offered to help with this effort. John will forward those email addresses to Ed Hafner. This group will have their first conference call on 12/26 at 11 a.m. eastern time. Please contact Ed Hafner if you would like to participate. The second workgroup will tackle the ambiguities in the implementation guides. This effort will center around clarifying the existing ambiguities and offering assistance on how these ambiguities should be handled in this initial HIPAA implementation. Ellen S (sorry, I didn't get your last name), Kerry Zajicek, and Marcelee Jackson volunteered to work in this group. However, there were no immediate volunteers to lead the group. The remaining projects will be tackled as time and resources allow. 3) Brandi Wyatt could not attend the call but she let John know that she was almost finished with the clean up effort of the dental technical scenario spreadsheet. John Lilleston is about 50% finished with the institutional technical scenarios. These should be delivered to Claredi again by sometime in early January. Our next call will be January 2, 2003 at 11:30 a.m. eastern time. The call in numbers are 703-736-7290 passcode 1315339. You may also use 1-800-495-0245 with the same passcode. Thanks!!! _______________________________________________ John Lilleston Technical Supervisor - Healthcare EDI Verizon Information Technologies, Inc. Healthcare Solutions Phone: 813-979-3225 Fax: 813-978-5570 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.VerizonIT.com/ _______________________________________________ --- The WEDI SNIP listserv to which you are subscribed is not moderated. The discussions on this listserv therefore represent the views of the individual participants, and do not necessarily represent the views of the WEDI Board of Directors nor WEDI SNIP. If you wish to receive an official opinion, post your question to the WEDI SNIP Issues Database at http://snip.wedi.org/tracking/. These listservs should not be used for commercial marketing purposes or discussion of specific vendor products and services. They also are not intended to be used as a forum for personal disagreements or unprofessional communication at any time. 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