The RippleDown Ultra interface has the facility to send a non-reporting message from a project back to Ultra, where an Ultra script can update the corresponding database flag to indicate whether or not a request panel can be billed. See Sending a billing message for details on how to use this facility from within RippleDown. (This facility can also be used where RippleDown is interfaced to the Kestral PLS system using the PLS “silent comments”).
Format
The message comprises of several fields separated by pipes, namely:
B|xx|nnnnnnn|ppp|t|Z|text
e.g.
B|06|1234567|GTT|0|N| No charge. Patient is not a known diabetic
where
o “B” signifies a billing related record
o “|” is used as the delimiter for all fields,
o “xx” is the year prefix,
o “nnnnnnn” is the lab number,
o “ppp” is the panel, (may be 2 or 3 characters)
o “t” is the tiebreaker,
o “Z” is a flag indicating the billing code. The following codes are applicable:
N (no bill), P (private bill)
o “text” is free-text indicating the reason for this action.
Any leading or trailing spaces in a field may be ignored.
Delivery
Consistent with the usual Ultra / RippleDown interface, a file transfer protocol, as follows:
1. The Ultra Server and RippleDown Server will share a common directory
$LW_DIR/bill
which is available to Windows via a Samba mount. The RippleDown Server will write the billing files to this directory, and the Ultra Server will read and delete the files from this directory, as specified below.
2. The RippleDown Server will write the billing file to this directory after the corresponding *.out file (containing the clinical interpretation) has been written to the $LW_DIR/out directory, irrespective of the validation status of the clinical report.
Note: Note that if the clinical project has been configured to use the Validator, and the report itself requires manual validation, the billing comment may be held up for some time until the corresponding clinical report is approved in the Validator.
3. The sequence of writing and reading a billing file shall be as follows:
a) The RippleDown server will create a file with the name
xx-nnnnnnn-pppt.tmp
b) The Ultra Server will not attempt to read the *.tmp file,
c) The RippleDown server will write the contents of the *.tmp file,
d) Once writing has completed, the RippleDown server will rename the file to the specified name, which is,xx-nnnnnnn-pppt.bil
e) The Ultra server will read the *.bil file, and then delete it.
4. The RippleDown Server will continue to write billing files to the shared directory, irrespective of whether the Ultra Server is currently processing them.
Message Acknowledgement
Billing files written by RippleDown will not be acknowledged by the Ultra Server.