Run a Black Box study
Compare a provider group's proposed rates with a network's current rates, code by code and payer by payer, from your assistant - upload links, the build, every table and graph of the results as data, and the client PDF.
A Black Box study answers one question for a health system (the network) and a provider group joining or renegotiating with it (the SPG): what would the group's own rates cost against the network's current contracted rates, at the group's volumes? In the app it is the Black Box service. Through the MCP server your assistant runs the same study from a conversation, and it is the same study the app shows.
Say something like:
Run a Black Box study of Focus Pediatrics against WellStar's rates. The group's file is focus-peds.xlsx in this folder.
The server knows the steps. Your assistant calls blackbox_next_step() and every result carries next_step.
Setting up
- Study and upload links.
create_blackbox_studynames the network side (the owner: the health system or hospital whose saved rate table holds today's rates) and the provider group, and returns a 15-minute upload link for each file the study needs. Each link says which file goes there. A local assistant (Claude Code) runs the returnedcurlin the folder holding the file; a browser assistant sends you to the upload page. The file never passes through the conversation. - The network's rates. When the owner has no rate table yet, the result includes a second link for it; save it with
inspect_uploadandsave_rate_table, as for a rate benchmark. - The provider group's file.
build_blackbox_studyfirst shows the file's sheets, columns and a suggested mapping, and builds nothing. Once the code column, each payer's rate column and the units column are confirmed (or the template's three schedules: rates, utilization, payer names), the second call maps the file, takes the network side from the owner's latest rate table and runs the variance. Payers whose names differ from the rate table's (BCBSandBlue Cross Blue Shield) come back with a suggestedpayer_map; build again with it.
Reading the results
Every component the app's study page and the PDF show is its own tool, returning that component's data as JSON from the same builder the page or the PDF draws. blackbox_sections lists them in reading order, and each result's next_step names the next one.
| Component | Tool |
|---|---|
| App: Data Sets | blackbox_datasets |
| App: summary cards | blackbox_summary_metrics |
| App: By Payer | blackbox_by_payer |
| App: By Category | blackbox_by_category |
| App: By CPT Code (payer tabs) | blackbox_by_cpt |
| PDF §3 Executive Summary + the Executive Summary PDF | blackbox_report_executive_summary |
| PDF §5 intro (materiality) | blackbox_report_materiality |
| PDF Table 1 / Graph 1.1 (current) | blackbox_table1_current_by_cpt, blackbox_graph1_current_by_plan |
| PDF Table 2 / Graph 2.1 (projected) | blackbox_table2_projected_by_cpt, blackbox_graph2_projected_by_plan |
| PDF Table 3 / Graph 3.1 (dollar change) | blackbox_table3_change_by_cpt, blackbox_graph3_change_by_plan |
| PDF Table 4 / Graph 4.1 (% change) | blackbox_table4_percent_change_by_cpt, blackbox_graph4_percent_change_by_plan |
| PDF Table 5 (by category) | blackbox_table5_by_category |
| PDF Graph 6 (current vs projected by plan) | blackbox_graph6_current_vs_projected_by_plan |
| PDF §6 Summary and Observations | blackbox_report_summary_observations |
| PDF §1, §2, §4 (background, scope, approach) | blackbox_report_background |
| PDF disclaimer + Appendix I disclosures | blackbox_report_disclosures |
The app's components use the payers' real names and every code. The report components follow the report: payers de-identified as Plan 1, Plan 2, and only the codes that clear the study's materiality cutoff (which blackbox_report_materiality states). Percentages are fractions (0.05 is 5%).
export_blackbox writes the deliverable and returns a one-hour link: the full report or the executive summary as PDF or Word, or the audit workbook (both datasets and the results).
Plans
Creating a study, the upload links and the build are free. Without the Black Box service on your plan each component is a preview (five rows, no dollar or percent figures) and the export is refused with a link to upgrade.
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