Learn the rules AngelTrack uses for when dispatches will appear in the QA Review Queue.
Dispatches appear in the QA Review Queue when they are:
- marked Awaiting QA review (postprocess step 1), or
- marked Awaiting corrections (postprocess step 2).
AngelTrack automatically marks dispatches Awaiting QA review -- causing them to appear in this queue -- when their Execution Status is either Complete, as ordered or Complete, best effort. Dispatches that are marked Cancelled or Delegated to affiliate have no run report and therefore are not subject to QA review.
This diagram visualizes where the QA review queue sits in the workflow:
As you can see, QA reviewers are the bridge between the crews and the Billing office. Run reports are not seen in the Billing office until after they pass QA.
Some Dispatches are Allowed to Skip QA
There are two mechanisms for dispatches to skip over QA and go straight to billing.
Random Selection
In the "Preferences" page under Settings, the AngelTrack Administrator can specify a percentage of dispatches subject to QA review, from 0% to 100%. For example, when set to 80%, then each dispatch has an 80% likelihood of being sent for review, and a 20% likelihood of skipping over QA and going straight to the Billing office.
Smart Skip
In the "Preferences" page under Settings, the AngelTrack Administrator can check ☑ Skip QA review if there was no patient care and if signatures and mileage are in order to allow wheelchair calls to automatically skip QA if all necessary signatures are present and the leg times and odometer readings are consistent. This relieves your QA reviewers of the burden of reviewing most wheelchair transports.
Delegated to Affiliates
Any dispatch delegated to an affiliated EMS company will automatically skip QA, because there will not be a run report to review.
Once You Review It, It Belongs to You
QA reviewers automatically take ownership of any dispatch they review.
Once a dispatch is "owned" by a QA reviewer, other QA reviewers will not see it in the QA Review Queue unless they uncheck the ☑ Hide dispatches reviewed by other QA reviewers box, underneath the "Filters" button. This ensures that the same QA reviewer will assess the corrections eventually returned by the crew.
You can take over any dispatches owned by other QA reviewers by opening the relevant QA Review form and then saving it back. You will assume ownership whether you pass it, fail it, or simply click "Save, Stay Here".
When an employee loses membership in the QA Reviewer role, all of their owned dispatches revert back to unowned.
State Data Validation
In order to graduate from QA, the dispatch must pass the validation rules put in place by your state. These rules are caled a "schematron", and AngelTrack has no control over its contents. AngelTrack is required to apply the rules to the PCR data, and if there are any failures, prevent the dispatch from moving on to billing until the errors are resolved.
You can fail the call back to the crew if a state data validation error prevents you from sending the call onward. Normally, the crew must resolve all state errors before submitting the call to QA, but new errors may appear if you change the service level provided.
If there are warnings but no errors, then you can choose to ignore them, and send the call onward anyway. State data validation rule-sets are often conflicting, and so it is not always possible to satisfy all of the warnings.
Force skipping state data validation
By visiting the Dispatch Edit page, you can use the "Billing" tab to force skip a call out of QA and onward to the Billing office. However, if the dispatch does not yet pass state data validation, then AngelTrack will not upload it to the trauma registry; instead it will end up in the State Upload Queue's fail list, waiting to be corrected.
After QA
Upon graduation from QA, the dispatch moves on to another queue according to its billing settings. For example, insurable calls move to the Insurance Review Queue, direct-bill calls move to invoicing, cash-pay calls move to Awaiting payment , and non-billables skip everything to go straight to Finished .
To learn about those downstream queues, read the Billing Queues guide.