2019 CMS template inconsistencies

[Dylan DeAmaral]

We have a production application that is integrated with the 2018 CMS Template file, which demographics-wise, appears to be identical to the 2019 CMS template, however the application fails with the 2019 template starting at the "Confirmation Comments" column, i.e. Column 17 (Q) within the demographics section. Since replacing the template, we expected things to break once it got to the new columns, however, we were surprised to see that our application output a file that, when opened, notifies us that "We found a problem with some content in <file name>.xlsx, Do you want us to try to recover as much as we can? If you trust the source of this workbook, click Yes.". This is completely unexpected behavior as mentioned, because the demographics fields (columns B-Q) appear to be identical to the previous years template. The file continues to fail to open, even if we don't write any data beyond Column Q.

My team and I are trying to figure out what has changed from the 2018 CMS template file excluding the new CMS Skip Request fields per measure so we can adjust accordingly. Is our assumption true about the demographics fields? Has there been any changes to formatting or validation on any of those fields, or perhaps some other excel functionality that we haven't taken into consideration?

This information is critical to our application. In summary:

1. Have there been any changes aside from the new fields added to the template, such as formatting or validation?
2. Particularly, has there been any changes to the confirmation comments column? A few other columns appear to have this issue as well, but this is the first failure point for our application (which again, works with the fields that should be exactly the same for demographics like last year)

We appreciate any help in advance, and can provide more information if needed.

[Tim Perkins]

We are having the same problem! 

As we write out to the cells, everything is ok until we hit Column Q. What should be a simple 1,000 character text box kills the export:

"We found a problem with some content in"

I can manually type in text, but cannot be done programmatically and stops the process cold.

Some relative code about the error:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>

<recoveryLog xmlns="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/spreadsheetml/2006/main"><logFileName>Repair Result to EXPORT_FOR_CMS_CARE2_Chads-Test-Site_12-12-2019-03-26-460.xml</logFileName><summary>Errors were detected in file '/Volumes/[C] Windows 10.hidden/Users/DDEAMA~1/AppData/Local/Temp/EXPORT_FOR_CMS_CARE2_Chads-Test-Site_12-12-2019-03-26-46.xlsx'</summary><removedRecords summary="Following is a list of removed records:"><removedRecord>Removed Records: Cell information from /xl/worksheets/sheet1.xml part</removedRecord></removedRecords></recoveryLog>

We think it is something minor blocking advancement, but racking our brains to figure it out.

Does it have something to do with Column Q being next to two "Conditional columns?" (Disqualification Reason and Enter the Date the patient became ineligible (MM/DD/YYYY)) We try each response in Column N (MRN Found) and the related responses in Columns O & P, but the program still blows up at Column Q.

Anybody else hit this yet besides us?

[Dylan DeAmaral]

After some further analysis and testing, we had attempted to copy the Confirmation Comments (Column Q) field from the previous template into the new template, and tried using that modified 2019 template as our base for our system, and it seemed to suppress the error message we are seeing. However, we had problem with the next fields (The care-2 data fields) after it, and don't find this to be a reasonable work around, given that there are new fields in this years template that did not exist in last years file, which we cannot copy into. We still have some testing to do around that, but hopefully this information can help the team at CMS in identifying this issue, and assists in putting out a patch or updated file.

Could the team at CMS let us know what the source of the problem is? We have some critical deadlines and would appreciate any help in resolving this issue.

Thanks

[Laura Hassey]

Hi all - we're investigating the comments field and will get back to you soon.  That field is limited to less than or equal to 1,000 characters (as the other comments fields are as well).

The 2019 Excel Template was refactored this year to improve performance. We no longer leverage Excel Tables as they were presenting performance issues.  We create a new Excel template each year based off the measure specification updates, we do not have a list of changes year to year.  

Thanks,

Laura

QPP CMS Web Interface Product Team

[James Garrett]

Hey everyone,

A potential workaround for this issue would be to follow these steps to copy your data to a new sheet without all of the bells and whistles that may be preventing your program from populating cells. Video example of tis process https://drive.google.com/open?id=1M1FbAvDwnIuG8Rea4lkjjyAyOTbBvrJC

1) Click in the corner of the sheet to select all columns and rows
2) Copy the data to your clipboard (ctrl + c or right click and select copy)
3) Create a new sheet
4) Click in the corner of the NEW sheet to select all columns and rows
5) Right click, and select "Paste Special" and then select "values" 
6) Delete the old sheet and rename the new sheet to "Patient List"

This should give you a basic sheet with only the data from the template without the formatting and validations. Again there is a video link above showing how to copy/paste the data only if you need it, please let us know if the video link is not working for you.

*THE DATA IN THE VIDEO IS NOT REAL DATA

Thanks, 
James

[James Garrett]

Edited link from above: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M1FbAvDwnIuG8Rea4lkjjyAyOTbBvrJC/view?usp=sharing

[Dylan DeAmaral]

Is it clear if this workaround would still provide a valid format for the final upload to the CMS interface? We're leery of making changes of our own to the file in the case that it gets flagged later down the road. If this is acceptable, would it be possible to get an official CMS team stamp of approval on this workaround (preferably in the form of a published and patched file)? We'd like to ideally use the same format as everyone else to prevent potential isolated issues down the road.

Thanks,

Dylan

[Laura Hassey]

Hi Dylan,

We've tested our 2019 Excel template and are not able to reproduce your issue.  This must be an issue with your program or application you are using to populate the Excel template. 

The process James posted above is an acceptable way of uploading data to the CMS Web Interface, we identify this as "Auto-generate your own Excel file" in the CMS Web Interface User Guide (found on the QPP Resource Library here:  https://qpp-cm-prod-content.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/790/2019%20CMS%20Web%20Interface%20User%20Guide.pdf).

Thanks!

Laura

[Tim Perkins]

Laura & James - thank you for checking this out. 

If we use the workaround approach, is there a way to test upload prior to January 2nd? 

Is there a sandbox we have access to?

Please advise, 

Thank you.

[Laura Hassey]

Hi Tim - No there is no sandbox UI to do an Excel template upload prior to submission opening. We do have the Developer Preview API up for testing out API integrations.  

We have tested the workaround in our environment.

If you have any issues during the submission window, please submit a help desk ticket.

Thanks,

Laura

[Tim Perkins]

Thank you!