Lumeris/Essence Group Healthcare


Lumeris, the software development arm of Essence Group Healthcare, needed to provide additional Electronic Healthcare Record (EHR) transaction processing (specifically 270/271 and 276/277) for multiple trading partners and two separate Blue Cross Blue Shield organizations through the Blue Exchange. Three separate C# applications were developed, each of which used a common function library. The three applications were:

  1. a Windows Service application,
  2. a Web Service application, and
  3. a Test Suite testing tool.

The Windows service ran on a Facets Application Server and read the inbound queue of the IBM WebSphere MQ Server, performed some pre-processing edits, sent the transaction to the HIPAA Gateway Web Service, performed some post-processing edits on the response, and placed the edited response on the outbound queue.


The web service application provided access for trading partners so that they could submit those same transaction types directly.


The Test Suite testing tool allowed the QA tester to load and send specific transactions through the MQ Server, through the external Web Service, or through an internal direct connection and capture the resulting response transaction for compliance analysis. It also provided the ability to identify multiple transaction files to run through the system in mass, thus allowing easy regression and performance testing. 


My Responsibilities, as Senior Developer, included:

  • Developing a written requirements document detailing the design and functions of each of three applications.
  • Developing the pre and post-edits used to manipulate the content of the 270, 271, 276, 277, 997, and 999 X12 transactions being processed.
  • Designing and developing the Test Suite Testing Tool. This included:
    • A selectable configuration that allowed the tool to point to one of 4 environments
    • An override section that allowed individual overrides of any environment variable
    • A single transaction processor that allowed the submission of a request transaction through one of three delivery mechanisms
    • A multi-transaction processor that allowed the tester to load multiple transactions at one time and have them submitted for processing at a predetermined time interval.
  • Developing a reporting tool that would extract pertinent data from the transaction logs and provide both detailed and summary reports for MQ and Web Service transaction activity.


Lumeris/Essence Group Healthcare