Prior year codes

Prior year codes are used to change the finance coding of a payment where the service is delivered in one financial year but paid in the following year. When this happens the subjective code part of the finance code for the service confirmation is replaced with the prior year code.

For example a DOM care style service is delivered on 28/03/2024 but the payment run happens the following Friday (05/04/2024) then the service confirmation will be coded against the prior year code.

The prior year code is only substituted in at the point a payment schedule is finalized - the draft schedule will show the original subjective code for the service. This is because there is no way to know when a schedule will be finalized e.g. at year end, a schedule could be drafted in the same financial year as the service confirmation, but not finalized until the following year - in which case the codes in the draft transaction would be incorrect.

Where a service covers a week (e.g. nursing home care) the system normally produce a single service confirmation covering the whole week. However, when the week spans a financial year e.g. 27/03/2023 - 02/04/2023 the system will generate 2 service confirmations for the week, one for the period 27/03/2023 - 31/03/2023 and one for the period 01/04/2023 - 02/04/2023.

In this case, assuming the payment schedule is finalized in the new financial year (i.e. on or after 01/04/2023) the prior year code will be applied to the service confirmation covering the period 27/03/2023 - 31/03/2023. The service confirmation covering the 2 days 01/04/2023 - 02/04/2023 will use the normal subjective code as this part of the service was delivered and paid in the same financial year.

PHB services work as described above (for DOM care style services) but because these service confirmations are generated on a month by month there is no need to split service confirmations across year end.

The prior year code to use is controlled by a configuration file that is setup as part of the project implementation. The following snippet provides an example of this

    "priorYearCodeMaps": [
        {
            "priorYearSubjectiveCode": "52161094",
            "costCentres": [
                "946045",
                "946084"
            ]
        },
        {
            "priorYearSubjectiveCode": "52161075",
            "costCentres": [
                "946141",
                "946165"
            ]
        }
    ],
    "priorYearSubjectiveCodeFallback": "52161078",

This file is ued to map cost centres to prior year codes. For example if the service confirmation is coded against cost centre 946045 or 946084 use 52161094 as the prior year code. If the service confirmation is coded against cost centre 946141 or 946165 use 52161075 as the prior year code. For any other cost centre use the 'priorYearSubjectiveCodeFallback' code of 52161078. It is possible to just use the priorYearSubjectiveCodeFallback and map all cost centres to the same prior year code using the following setup.

    "priorYearSubjectiveCodeFallback": "52161075",
    "priorYearCodeMaps": [],