As part of a self-service enrollment, a benefits participant can select a primary care provider (PCP) for a benefit plan. As a system administrator, you can configure Self-Service Benefits so that a participant can select a primary care provider through a web-based search of a PCP database.

Self-Service Benefits also supports free form text entry of primary care providers without validation when a repository of PCP data is not used.

Follow the instructions below based on the search type configured by your enterprise.

Setting up an XML-Enabled Primary Care Provider Search

If the search criteria entered by a benefits participant is formatted as an XML search request for use with a database of primary care providers (maintained by your enterprise or a third party), you use the Personalization Framework to configure information such as the URL of the information provider and the Document Type Definition (DTD) used by the search.

   To set up an XML-enabled primary care provider search:

1. Navigate to the Primary Care Provider Search page from the Self-Service Benefits Enrollments menu.

2. Choose the Personalize Ben PCP XML Request Params link.

3. Select a Personalization Level.

4. Choose the Advanced Settings button.

5. Select the Ben PCP Provider Information item and enter the URL of the information provider in the New Column Name field.

   Note: Enter the URL as you would in the Address or Location field of your web browser. Do not enclose the URL in quotations.

6. Select the Ben PCP XML DTD item and enter the URL of the XML Document Type Definition in the New Column Name field.

7. Select the Ben PCP Info Provider Client ID item and enter the Client ID given by the information provider in the New Column Name field.

8. If you use a proxy server to access an external web site, select the Ben PCP Server Proxy Set item and enter true in the New Column Name field.

   • If you do not use a proxy server, enter false.

9. If you use a proxy server, select the Ben PCP Server Proxy Port item and enter the port number (typically 80) in the New Column Name field.

10. If you use a proxy server, select the Ben PCP Proxy Host item and enter the URL of the proxy server in the New Column Name field.

11. Select the Ben PCP XML Version item and enter the version of XML you are using in the New Column Name field, such as 1.0

12. Select the Ben PCP Max Records item and enter the maximum number of records to be returned by the query in the New Column Name field.

    Note: For best performance, it is recommended that the maximum number of records be set to 100 or less.

13. Select the Ben PCP Request Method item and enter the HTTP request method expected by the information provider (such as GET or POST) in the New Column Name field.

14. Select the Ben PCP Show Label item and enter a message to display in the Result Table if the search returns no provider.

15. Select the Ben PCP Direction item and enter the text to display in the Map Column of the Result Table.

16. Select the Ben PCP Table Bar Text item and enter the text to display in the Result Table Bar.

Setting Up a Primary Care Provider Search without XML

Customers who create a search page which does not format the PCP query in XML can follow these guidelines for a creating a PCP search that is compatible with Self-Service Benefits.

   To set up a primary care provider search without XML:

1. Navigate to the Primary Care Providers page from the Self-Service Benefits Enrollments menu.

2. Choose the Personalize Primary Care Provider Selection Table link.

3. Select a Personalization Level.

4. Choose the Advanced Settings button.

5. Select the Search item and enter the URL in the URL field that is accessed when a participant clicks the Search button on your custom Search web page.

6. A system administrator or application developer creates a search page that performs the query and accepts the following page-context variables:

   • PcpPersonId = (Person ID of the person for whom you are searching for a primary care provider )

   • PcpPlId = (Plan ID defined for the plan in the database)

   • PcpPlTypId = (Plan Type ID defined in the database)

   Note: You do not need to use these variables if they are not required for your search or validations.

7. If the search is canceled without a selection of a PCP, the following URL must be used to return to the search page:

   • /OA_HTML/OA.jsp?akRegionCode=BEN_PCP_SELECT_PAGE&akRegionApplicationId=805&pcpSearchCancel=1.

   Note: Replace the directory OA_HTML with the base HTML directory of your installation.

8. If the search is successful, the URL accessed by the query must return the following information (properly formatted) with the following parameter names and data types:

   Parameter Name	Data	Value	Example
   ExtIdent	ID of the primary care provider per the plan.	Number	10154244 (id)
   PcpName	Name of the primary care provider	String	Sue Jones, MD (doctorsName)
   PcpSpecialty	Specialties of the primary care provider	String	Internal Medicine, Pediatrics (specialty)
   PcpPlId	The plan ID that corresponds to the plan name	Number	905 (planId)
   PcpPersonId	The person ID passed to the database as part of the query	Number	928374655 (personId)
   PcpTypCd	The code of the first primary care provider specialty that is returned by the query	Number	23 (pcpTypCd)

   The URL returned by the search should look like this:

   • /OA_HTML/OA.jsp?akRegionCode=BEN_PCP_SELECT_PAGE&akRegionApplicationId=805&ExtIdent=id&PcpName=doctorsName&PcpSpecialty=specialty&PcpPlId=planId&PcpPersonId=personId&PcpTypCd=pcpTypCd

   Note: Replace the directory OA_HTML with the base HTML directory of your installation and replace the variables in the URL with the actual values.