Metadata Exchange

When you send or receive data including non-structured data such as XRay images, binary data, DICOM files, archived electronic records, and so on, you can use additional metadata to improve your business exchange process. Additional information is transmitted as metadata to the tracking system, which allows you or your partner to search for and track the required data. You can identify a piece of data only through the trackable part of metadata that is not encrypted and can be loaded in the log files. The data itself and the non-trackable portion of the metadata are encrypted and transmitted unchanged. Some information about the metadata below:

  • Metadata is provided in the .properties file that contains name-value pairs.
  • Metadata can contain both trackable information that is registered in the MFT system and other non-trackable information.
  • Trackable information is not encrypted and is available for viewing and searching.
  • Non-trackable metadata is transmitted in an encrypted form along with the data.

To distinguish which data is trackable, a naming convention is used. When a parameter starts with the cl_ prefix, then this parameter is trackable. It means that this parameter is copied from the .properties file and added to the audit log that displays this parameter in Metadata of the Transmissions section in the MFT service web portal. You can search for a transmitted file by the name of this parameter or its value that are both in the metadata of the transmitted file. For example, when there is the cl_nickname=healthcare name-value pair in your <NameOfYourTrasnmittedFile>.properties file, you can search both by nickname and by healthcare to retrieve the transmitted file, from the tons of files that can have the same name.

Note that you can edit, for example, the CL_CorrelationID, that allows you to correlate several MFT transmissions. The following is a case study of when you may need to use metadata:

  • When you correlate X12 acknowledgements with an original transmission. A provider submits claim information to a payer and wants to identify the return acknowledgements. To do this, the provider provides the CL_CorrelationID property with the metadata in the original request of the 837 transaction. The responding system recognizes this correlation ID when responding back with the TA1 or 999 acknowledgement, so a provider is able to correlate a response with an original request.

Example

Partner A sends a file to Partner B. Partner B receives a file and the .properties file with the correlation ID.

CL_CorrelationID - FF826D4E0CEC46AD93C5EFAB33B40CAE

Partner B processes the file, generates a result file, and the properties file manually, and sends them back to Partner A. The properties file of the result file includes the same correlation ID:

CL_CorrelationID - FF826D4E0CEC46AD93C5EFAB33B40CAE

Partner A receives a response with the same correlation ID. This ID is used to determine which original claim the response relates to.

You can add as many properties as you need.