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Managing the life cycle

Maintaining synchronization between your financial system CDM table and your Toolkit file is important to assuring the integrity of both systems. This is accomplished through a periodic Merge process where you compare an extract of your most recent financial system CDM table to the current data in Chargemaster Toolkit. Taking time to understand the Lifecycle of the Toolkit will help you avoid unnecessary Implementation Errors created in the Merge process. The goal of this process is to make sure all intended edits recorded in the Toolkit are applied to your financial system CDM table, and make sure the Toolkit matches your current financial system CDM table.

Some hospitals analyze potential CDM edits in the Toolkit and then manually data enter them into their financial system CDM table. Others initiate changes in their financial system CDM table without recording or analyzing them within the Toolkit. Manual data entry allows room for human error and differences can accumulate over time. Maintaining the Toolkit Lifecycle on a monthly basis as detailed below assures the integrity of its recommendations and confirms the accuracy of your financial system CDM table. The Lifecycle of the Toolkit begins and is maintained as follows:

Create your initial extract of the CDM table from your hospital financial system in the format defined in your customization agreement.
Send initial file to Craneware to convert for use in Chargemaster Toolkit.
Open initial file in Chargemaster Toolkit.
Initiate, analyze and accept edits in Chargemaster Toolkit.
Record edits on your financial system CDM table via Interface Scripting or manually.
Periodically send an updated extract of the CDM file from your hospital financial system (in the same format as your original file) to Craneware for conversion.
Merge the converted file into the Toolkit for analysis.
Resolve Implementation Errors reported by Chargemaster Toolkit.
Continue with Step 4.

Options checklist:

I want to convert and merge the updated financial system CDM file myself each month.
I want to merge my financial system CDM data while I have pending edits I haven’t accepted in the Toolkit nor applied to my financial system CDM table.
I want to add a large number of new records created within my patient financial system CDM to Chargemaster Toolkit without having to manually enter them as individual adds.
I only want to use my Craneware file as an analytical tool without making edits there.

Key information and lessons from the field:

To avoid Implementation Errors it is important that all changes initiated in either the Toolkit or your financial system CDM table are recorded in both systems. When this practice is not followed your live CDM and Toolkit data file will fall out of synch. And the periodic Merge comparison will report the differences as Implementation Errors.
Implementation Errors are Chargemaster Toolkit’s way of telling you that the changes you wanted to make (as edited in the Toolkit) were not applied to your Financial System. They are an indication of breakdowns in your Chargemaster Lifecycle.
Most Craneware clients perform the data Merge comparison monthly to assure the Toolkit audit recommendations are based on your actual CDM table. If you use the Toolkit to initiate all CDM changes and then upload the changes to your financial system CDM with Interface Scripting your Toolkit data file and live CDM should always be in sync.
Only authorized users have the authority to run the Merge process and fix implementation errors. Failure to resolve implementation errors associated with an individual record will prevent you from making additional edits to that record inside the Toolkit.
During the Merge Process, you can customize your merge template and specify the fields that generate Implementation Errors as well as the types of Implementation Errors that are reported. This allows you to ignore synchronization issues in non-critical situations.
Sometimes due to a system conversion or other reason a hospital will add numerous new codes directly to their financial system CDM. The merge process is a simple way to add these records to the Toolkit data file directly.
Chargemaster Corporate Toolkit customers that maintain a unique corporate standard file may or may not routinely perform a file merge against their corporate Toolkit file if it does not also exist as an entity on their patient financial system. In this case the Toolkit file becomes the master data base for the corporate standard and must be maintained directly within the Toolkit.
For the merge process to function properly both the Toolkit data file and the CDM extract to be merged must contain unique service codes for every record. Records that do not have a service code or are duplicated will be flagged and reported in an initial conversion report.
Using Chargemaster Toolkit for analysis without paying attention to the Lifecycle is possible but will limit your ability to fully use many of the Toolkit’s best features such as Best Practice and managing multiple users of the Toolkit unless you perform the basic file set up procedures each time the file is replaced. As an analytical tool you are essentially replacing the existing Toolkit file periodically without performing the merge function.

Life Cycle Training Document

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