Field notes / Note 028

Four rates that ship switched off

2 min · PAN-142

Billing modifiers for a medical practice came out of a scanned government notice. Most could be read and confirmed. Four could not.

The tempting options were to guess from the neighbouring values, or to leave the field blank and hope. Instead the four rates ship inactive, each with a note saying exactly what to check.

Nothing gets billed at a rate nobody could read. The system is visibly incomplete in four places, and it says which four.

An agent is very good at producing a complete-looking table. It takes an explicit rule to get one with holes in the right places.