Syncoms

In the United States, health insurance issuers and group health plans must provide an easy-to-understand summary of a health plan's benefits and coverage, called SBC (Summary of Benefits and Coverage). All insurance companies must use the same standard SBC form to help to compare health plans.

At the beginning of 2019, we received a request from a client about developing a bespoke system to compile such documents. To comply, these documents must go through a series of conditions that involves checking around 400 different values simultaneously. As an additional request, the system had to compile the internal documentation based on the same values but with a different conditional logic.

The system had to replace a previous application going to be dismissed at the end of August 2019. All the material was planned to be delivered 1st of April with the beginning of the work. After one week from the work assignment, we received communication that the deadline had moved to the end of May due to an early dismissal of the previous platform, leaving the project with less than two months for completion.

The logical solution was to separate what was necessary for the client from accessories functions that could be developed in a second stage. After identifying the client's requirement, I've drawn the first concept of the system using a low-code DB app, creating the different DB tables and setting a first workflow of the interface.

With that and the material from the client, I could audit a series of external development agencies for assigning the job. Once identified, I've taken the role of Project Manager, translating the requirements and the terminology from the medical point of view to the dev team and setting the hierarchy of the goal and the sprints required.

The next step was then to take the essential parts and divide them into sprints over six weeks, leaving the remaining three for testing, review and required amendments.

Due to the short timing, the choice of a framework that allows a fast development with pre-built UI functionality was considered, leaving the choice to Python in conjunction with Django.

1. Definition of the software architecture: Data analysis, designing a highly scalable data structure. Definition and relative setup of the server environment and importing data.
2. Deployment of the core functions. First interface for the data entry and consultation. Definition of the HTML to PDF engine.
3. Definition of the conditional logic required for generating an SBC. Definition of the conditional logic necessary for the generation of an internal document. Coding of the first SBC's HTML template.
4. Data population of the SBC's template. Coding the HTML template for the internal documents and consequent data population.
5. Developing the first additional parts.
       a) editor for the creation and editing of the header and the footer of the internal documents
       b) creation of an automated process for the transmission of the generated PDF to a secure FTP Government repository
       c) improving the control over the internal document by adding advanced features.
6. Review, test, clean up and show to the client.

Given the great success Syncoms also started to capitalize and propose it as software for the American Health Industry