sankar1234 wrote on Friday, April 29, 2005:
When the EDI is X12 format for billing, why do we support these two clearing houses? Are we providing any specials interface for these two companies?
sunsetsystems wrote on Friday, April 29, 2005:
No, nothing special - I think it’s just that Pennfirm indicated they have tested those.
I got things working with Zirmed after fixing some stuff.
– Rod <rod at sunsetsystems dot com>
sankar1234 wrote on Friday, April 29, 2005:
If the X12 interface tested with two clearing houses, why don’t we put a statement that openemr supports all clearing houses, but tested with proxymed and zirmed.
sunsetsystems wrote on Friday, April 29, 2005:
Well we should stick to what we know. I installed a site that used Zirmed. Does anyone know of specific sites using OpenEMR and FreeB with Proxymed?
And I’m not willing to say that it “supports all clearing houses”. Every new case will surely take some extra work.
– Rod <rod at sunsetsystems dot com>
tekknogenius wrote on Saturday, April 30, 2005:
I start testing with proxymed next week. I’ll post my results.
tekknogenius wrote on Tuesday, May 17, 2005:
Testing passed thus far. Had to make sure the CPT codes were justified with ICD9 codes and make sure the facility is a billing location (check box checked and billing attention field filled in with a name).
sankar1234 wrote on Thursday, May 26, 2005:
I am going with another clearinghouse as I felt the support from proxymed is not sufficient for my needs. I got help from this new clearinghouse and they provided all the materials to test with their website while I was on the phone.
I haven’t contacted Zirmed.
Did you change any code for Zirmed? I am still using RC1.
sunsetsystems wrote on Thursday, May 26, 2005:
FreeB was not part of rc1. But yes, you’ll probably find some fixes since rc1 was released. Most importantly, look at the dates and CVS log entries for files in the freeb/formatbin directory.
Most fixes that I’ve made to FreeB are not specific to Zirmed; they are payer requirements. I.e. they are important if your goal is to get paid. 
So what clearing house are you considering? Has anyone tried FreeClaims?
– Rod <rod at sunsetsystems dot com>
sankar1234 wrote on Thursday, May 26, 2005:
Sorry. I believe I got Freeb from CVS couple of weeks ago.
I called Gateway and they were nice too.
I will check with FreeClaims later.
ANother question. We have proxymed.pl, x12.pl, but not zirmed.pl. In the billing UI of OpenEMR, for each claim, there is a pull down menu for X12 partners. Do I add one for Zirmed/Gateway and then zirmed.pl or gateway.pl in the formatbin dir also?
Thanks
sunsetsystems wrote on Thursday, May 26, 2005:
No, Zirmed uses standard.pl or x12.pl (I forget which, they are identical). I think this notion of separate source files for different clearing houses was an atrocious idea - it causes enormous duplication of code and maintenance effort.
– Rod <rod at sunsetsystems dot com>
sankar1234 wrote on Thursday, May 26, 2005:
Thanks for the clarification. The presence of proxymed.pl made me think that there might be on file for each clearinghouse. I can vote one way or the other and it depends on the changes to be made for each clearinghouses. If the changes are only cosmetic, then one file is a good idea. But if the changes are many and putting them in big bulk file is not a good idea. However, thanks for the clarification.
tekknogenius wrote on Friday, May 27, 2005:
Rod…
Have you actually been successful in sending x12 to zirmed? I’m testing with proxymed, but most of the generated edi files fail. I’m testing via a HIPAA compliance site and it doesn’t pass. I’ve tried with both proxmed.pl and x12.pl, to no avail. I thought I had it, but that was only one claim that passed.
sunsetsystems wrote on Friday, May 27, 2005:
Yes, we are (finally) happily sending x12 claims and getting payments. In the process of achieving this I’ve learned more about the 837p spec than I ever wanted to know.
Your test site may be more strict than Zirmed and our payers are. I expect at this point you’ll need to look at the specific reasons for rejection. This stuff can be difficult and time-consuming.
If you want to get down and dirty with it, you can start with the 837p spec which is a free download from http://www.wpc-edi.com/. Alternatively you might start evaluating the possibility of integrating FreeB2 with OpenEMR…
– Rod <rod at sunsetsystems dot com>
sankar1234 wrote on Friday, May 27, 2005:
as per my communication with Fred, FreeB2 is not yet ready to be a standalone product. I believe FreeB2 is nicer to implement than FreeB, as the former is Php based. That’s the reason I put billing on the backburner for now and wait it out, though I made FreeB working on windows platform.
tekknogenius wrote on Friday, May 27, 2005:
The problem was that the proxmed.pl (and I assume standard.pl) didn’t properly handle SBR (suscriber) info when the patient was not the subscriber. I found a note in the old form to handle this. http://www.openemr.net/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=151