Matching Patient Records

ZOLL Billing uses a weighted algorithm to determine if a new patient record is a match of an existing patient record when claims are imported or manually created. That algorithm determines when/if you get prompted to verify if the new patient record is a duplicate or a new record.

In the weighted algorithm, each of the following matching criteria is given a number of points:

• Social security number: 100

• Personal information:

  • Date of birth: 30

  • Sex: 0

  • First name: 9

  • Middle name: 2

  • Last name: 34

• Address:

  • Address line 1: 6

  • Address line 2: 2

  • City: 6

  • State: 5

  • Zip: 6

• Name is similar or sounds like: Based on the both the first and last names - this criteria returns a:

  • 0-3 = not very similar

  • 4 = strongly similar or identical (considered a match)

Exact match: The new patient record is considered an exact match of an existing record when the combined weights of the above criteria is over 96.

Possible match: If the new patient record matches enough of the above criteria to equal 60, then it is considered a possible match which results in the system prompting you to verify the new patient record.