V39 Released

 As of about 6:54 pm Eastern on October 1, 2021 we released versions of our products which support v39 of the US federal grouping algorithm, which version went into service on October 1st, 2020.

For a list of what is new and different in this version, please refer to our latest documentation (link to PDF available on our etail site or this blog's main page).

V38 Released

As of about 9:30 am Eastern on October 6, 2020 we released versions of our products which support v38 of the US federal grouping algorithm, which version went into service on October 1st, 2020.

We were a bit delayed by COVID-19 related issues and an ancient bug in our exclusions loader (there are many new exclusions in this year's version).

For a list of what is new and different in this version, please refer to our latest documentation (link to PDF available on our etail site or this blog's main page).

V37 Release

Earlier today, we released versions of our products which support v37 of the US federal grouping algorithm, which version went into service on October 1st, 2019.

What's new with this year's release?

• Our 64 Bit Linux PHP, Perl and C objects are now created on a new platform, a cloud server.
  
• Our 32 Bit Linux products are one step closer to being retired: we are running out of platforms on which to build them. Please leave a comment if you are still using 32 bit executables.
  
• On a Windows 7 computer, our VB DLL is triggering warnings from Norton when we install it on a computer which runs Norton. These warnings can be safely ignored.
  
• We are planning on putting previous versions of our DRG Manual on-line for reference, attached to entries in this blog.

V34 Deployment Set For This PM

Our automated download creator and validator is done. All of our downloads have been created and validated. We are on schedule to update our on-line etail site this evening.

F32 Support

This year's release has not gone well. It should be ready first thing tomorrow, Thursday, November 13, 2014, which is the latest we have ever released a grouper, and there is a known issue with the release (we are confident that the known issue will not matter to any of our customers, but we feel the need to document it none the less.)

First, we had to dust off our ICD9 technology which we had expected to have retired by now. Many aspects of this technology are different and out of date and resurrecting the development environment was more challenging than we had expected.

Then our lead engineer ended up in the hospital for a week just before our big release push, which has us scrambling do to the release. This caused the initial delay.

Finally, after the programming was done, our QA testing turned up the following issue: while our DRG Assignment Engine (DAE) returns the correct DRG in all test cases, sometimes it does not return the expected error code.

Specifically, our DAE does not distinguish shares of Hospital Acquired Condition (HAC) errors; it returns 9 when sometimes the CMS grouper returns 9, 11 or 15. So if you need to know more precisely how the HAC rules were violated, we currently cannot help you.

(If we discover from customer feedback that we are wrong and these distinctions matter, we will do a release to replicate the CMS error handling.)

V30 Bug

This post is an overview of an issue with the v30 DRG Assignment Engine (DAE) and our response to it. Related posts will have the label "v30 bug" in order to make them easier to find. This post will be updated as the status changes.

Current status (Oct 24 2:27pm Eastern)
The issue in regression testing under 32 bit Linux was hard enough to resolve that we upgraded the 32 bit Linux reference platform instead (for details, go here). While we were upgrading reference platforms, we also upgraded the Windows reference platform (for details, go here).

We have finished the in-house rebuild and revalidation of our products. We are currently rebuilding the products built using  a porting lab, at which point we will be ready to update our web site and start sending out free updates to customers. We have already begun sending out free updates to customers with standing orders.

History of Bug Fix

On October 11 at about 10am
Customer Service received a bug report:

One of our customers asked about a change in V30 that maps a dx of 487.0 with one 1 of 11 secondary pneumonia dx's to DRGs 177-179. In previous versions this combo would map to DRGs 193-195. She claims this change is in the specs of the final release. Our grouper is mapping this combo to the old DRGs of 193-195.

October 11 at about 10:30am
Tech Support punted this issue to Development.

October 12 at about 6pm
Development delivers a fix to Tech Support:

The problem was in the CC exclusion logic, requiring a change to the DAE, so all DRG assigning products will have to be re-released.

When the DAE was delivered the first time, you noticed that the test file did not do a very good job of covering the DRGs, and we said we would look into finding the latest one with better cover. which we did. When we ran against the new test file, there were over 200 mismatches. These turned out to be cases with more than 15 diagnoses or procedures. So we upped our limit to 25 which required changes to DRGFilt and it control file, cntl.f30.

Note that drgmasks.f30 did NOT change so you only have to redeliver the DAE itself (drgfilt, dll, shared object, etc).

October 13, various
Tech Support drew up their roll-out plan:

1. create this overview post
2. document a test case or two so users can confirm DAE status
3. revalidate product line with new DAE and new test DB
4. update our manual's "What's New" to reflect this bug
5. have Customer Service approve documentation changes
6. update web site with new products
7. send updates for standing orders
8. send updates for orders from the web site

Plan approved; plan execution begins.

October 14, various
Tech Support  continues executing plan.

V30 for ICD10

We have a pre-release of V30 for ICD10 codes in the works. We expect CMS to release a definitions manual in the next few weeks, at which point we can ensure that our implementation is correct.

We expect CMS to release their V30 ICD10 grouper early next year, 2013. We intend to release ours on or before February 1st, 2013.

V30 Release Early

Since there were no changes to V30 in the past few weeks, our pre-release V30 is being promoted to a full release today. While the official release date will be October 1st this year, we expect to finish our internal validation and distribution today, at which point we will fill our standing orders. We will update our website and on-line store tomorrow.

Thanks for your patience.

F30 Pre-Release

We have received a pre-release of F30 from our development group to accommodate a DRG Assignment Service (DAS) client who wanted to try out F30 ahead of its official release on October 1st, 2012.

We put the pre-release F30 through our basic validation process, upgraded our DAS system and have used it successfully.

We are in the process of finishing the internal F30 roll-out.

Barring changes from CMS or bug reports, this will become our official F30 release on October 1st, 2012.

F29 Release: Web Site Updated

Our web site has been updated. This completes our initial F29 release.

F29 Manual: What Changed

We have revised our manual for F29. Here is what changed with the F29 version of the manual:

• updated various dates in the text
• fixed typo "appeneded" in various chapters
• chapter 3: added documentation of bit string DAE outputs, per this tech support question.

F29 Standing Orders Have Been Filled

Our pre-ordered F29 orders and our standing orders have been filled.

Left to do:

• publish an updated manual
• update our on-line store
• release the updated web site

F29 Release: Windows Validation

Win32 DRGFilt...Passed
Win32 C-callable DLL...Passed
Win32 VB-callable DLL...Passed
Win32 VB-DRG / VB-callable DLL compatibility...Passed
Win32 CGI-DRG...Passed
Win32 F29 ICD9 table...Passed
Win32 ICD labeling DLL...Passed

Win32 F29 masks installer...Passed
Win32 C-callable DLL installer...Passed
Win32 VB-callable DLL installer...Passed

Our windows product line is validated and ready for shipping.

Expected F29 Release: still 10/12/11

Development has turned over the ICD9 F29 DAE to us for validation, a process we expect to complete in time for a release tomorrow.

The ICD10-prototype-for-F28, which we call X28, will be out of development soon.

Version 29 of ICD10 won't be released until January, 2012, so development won't be done with X29 until the end of January, 2012, at the earliest.

Expected F29 Release: 10/12/11?

When we predicted that we would do a release on 10/10/11, we forgot that 10/10/11 is a holiday hereabouts and that we are closed for business. We will need at least a day to get ready after we get back to work, so we are looking at 10/12/11 at the earliest now.

Expected F29 Release: 10/10/11

We were not able to get our release out yesterday; we currently expect to do the release on Monday, October 10th.

Expected F29 Release: 10/06/11

Due to popular demand, this year we are publishing an expected release date for a version.

We expect to release support for version 28 of the US Federal DRG assignment algorithm, active as of October 1st 2011, on October 6th, 2011.

If you have pre-ordered from us, we expect you to have your software by close of business on October 6th, 2011.

We expect to publish an updated manual at the same time.

Annual Release Dates

QUESTION

I just wanted to get a status update on the release date of the new grouper for this year and get on the list to obtain it as soon as possible.

ANSWER

Our products track with the US Federal (CMS) versions. They release on or about October 1st every year. We try to release as close to October 1st as we can. We usually release within five business days of October 1st. On rare occasion, we are later or earlier.

We cannot guarantee a release date as the CMS releases vary greatly in size and complexity.

We are aware that many of our customers need the release to be as close to October 1st as possible, so we are working hard this year to make sure that this happens, even as ICD10 looms over us.

F28 Released

Our support for version 28 of the US Federal DRG assignment algorithm, active as of October 1st 2010, has just been released.

F27 Released

Our support for version 27 of the US Federal DRG assignment algorithm, active as of October 1st 2009, has just been released.