When the Apex (EPIC) implementation went live in June 2012, there were certain functionalities pertaining to Research billing that were not built. It was intended that certain processes for Research billing would continue in a manual fashion until which time the build could be completed. Unfortunately, some of the processes have still have not been built and progress with Apex enhancements for Research billing has been very slow for a number of reasons. You may not be aware that one of the major hurdles has been the inability to bill Professional Fee charges to studies and grants. While this process does exist for hospital (facility) charges, the build has not been completed for the physician services. As a result, professional charges have been holding in the Apex system since go-live. I was just made aware of this issue recently and apologize for the lack of communications and transparency around this issue.

 

As we look to improve processes for Research billing, and integrate systems and databases to optimize our workflows, we are identifying these gaps and working quickly to address them. The following is a plan for how we propose to address the clean up of old charges, as well as what needs to occur moving forward.

 

Please be informed that if you currently have a study in active status (in IRIS) and there are professional charges holding Apex, you will be getting a report of these charges to review within the next couple of days. A spreadsheet will be emailed to you by Maria Mason, the new Director for the Research Revenue Cycle. You will have the opportunity to review and approve, or reject all charges. You may notice that some of the charges are old. Government funded study charges go back to June 2012 and Industry charges that are in active studies could go back multiple years as well. We are very sorry that this backlog has occurred. To avoid automatically charging your studies, it is necessary that we ask you to participate in this review process. So that we can clean up the backlog and focus on the new processes moving forward, we will need to have your responses back by September 30^th.

 

Starting in October, professional charges (effective July 2015 and after) will be billed to your study account(s). You will receive a charge reconciliation report as you (or your team) does now for the facility charges. While the system build has not yet been completed, a manual process for the billing of the professional charges will be implemented until the automated process is built.

 

If you have any concerns, please let me know. Please send your responses to the charge review directly to Maria Mason, Director Research Revenue Cycle ([email protected]). If you did not get a report, it’s likely that charges were adjusted due to aging / inactive study. However, if you feel that you should have gotten charges to review, please email Maria Mason, and copy me. She will research your inquiry.