Healthcare clients - Patient billing systems interfaces to Lawson

Calling all healthcare clients - Does anyone have automated interfaces build into Lawson from Patient billing systems? If so, I would like to know what you are using to make this happen. Using a middleware for reformatting or SSIS? Just looking for ideas.

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Legacy Contributor

Here at Yale we use Epic for our EMR.
We just create GLTRANSREL records on a monthly basis for our Revenue.
With regard to Patient Refunds, we create the relevant APINVOICE/DISTRIB/ATTACH files for Check creation.

Hope this helps.

Robert Canham

We are similar to Peter. We have an extract from Epic for our revenue. But we use the CB Payment functionality for patient refunds (no one-time vendor setup). This goes through CBPMTLOAD and uses the CB554.

gwhiteford

Thanks for the responses. I did get this client using CB for patient refunds earlier this year using the same actions, CBPMTLOAD and CB554. They are currently loading data into Lawson on a monthly basis as well. But, they are using Access to reformat the data from the billing systems and load it to GL65 and it's a very manual process that I want to get automated for them. So I wanted to find out what other healthcare clients are doing.

Legacy Contributor

While we don't have any incoming healthcare interfaces, we have a variety of incoming interfaces using a creative and varied mix of technologies. SSIS? Yes, one of our interfaces is that. We also have custom VBA programs to massage incoming data into format that can be accepted by Lawson. There are two primary methods used, though: 1) "importdb" whereby a spreadsheet or custom program creates a file that can be brought directly into the special Lawson tables for import, to be massaged by one of the import program combinations - GL165/GL65 for GL, AP520/AP52 for AP, CB50/CB500 for Cash Book, and so on. Sometimes I've seen the originator (vendor, healthcare client, customer, etc.) create the file for the Lawson client, but that's exceptional. This method can be automated via UNIX script or Windows batch file. The important thing is the creation of file that will be acceptable to Lawson and go right in via "importdb". The reason that the import programs are used is to ensure that the data is validated against Lawson metadata logic. 2) Add-Ons - whereby the data is assembled into a spreadsheet and run in via the Add-Ons. This is done directly thru the input screens and employs the metadata logic that ensures that the data goes in "clean".

tom

At ST Joseph's Hospital Health Center we also use EPIC EMR. We upload patient billing from EPIC to Lawson daily via an automated process. EPIC creates a CSV file formatted for GLTRANSREL table per the specification. We then utilize an automation programming tool called ActiveBatch that will pick up these files every morning and run the Unix Lawson ImportDB command line to load these daily files into Lawson. Our Finance team will then process these into Journal entries via GL65 & GL165. We do this for all 3 unique companies.

tom

For ST Josephs I should have also added that we also create Patient Refund files out EPIC properly formatted for APCINVOICE. Our AP team prefers to load these manually via IMPORTDB (IMDB.1) on their own schedule. So we just send them emails when the files are ready and they process them when they desire. We also have an automated process to send Refund status back from Lawson to EPIC for EPIC to balance their patient accounting.

Legacy Contributor

Good point Greg,

Forgot to mention about the file back, including Check info, to Epic.

jreese

We too are using EPIC and receive daily files for Transactions, Stats and Patient Refunds. We receive the Transaction and Stat files formatted to work with GLTRANSREL and the Refunds to work with CBPMTLOAD. We use a scheduled process flow to ftp the files from EPIC to Lawson and use the importdb command to load them into Lawson and send an email to the appropriate users to inform them of the number of records loaded and any errors with the load. You can also use process flow to reformat files if they are not in the exact format prior to loading.

gwhiteford

Yes, I was actually wondering if anyone was using IPA for interfaces? I know that IPA can do this function and can process the importdb and can send out emails as well. Interesting that no one has come back with that response yet.

jreese

We have been using processflows to do interfaces from Lawson to other systems and vendors since we went live in 2010. We just went live this weekend on v10 and all of those processes converted over very easily to IPA.

gwhiteford

Good to know. I might hit you up later for information on your IPA flows. Thank you.

Legacy Contributor

Need an Epic Resource...we are switching our Patient Refund process from an apinvoice/apdistrib import to a cbpymtload process and our Epic team has asked if I could assist in finding someone who can help them with the file creation on their side.
Sorry to just tag on to this thread but it seems the most appropriate.

And as for our GL we do as others have said, Epic creates a file for the GLTRANSREL table and we have scheduled job that runs the GL165 to load it into Lawson. Finance then reviews etc.

Copyright © 2025 Infor. All rights reserved.