Erie Insurance emailed a Direct Repair Program update this week, requiring all scans and calibrations to be entered into the CCCOne estimating system using 23 standard line entries CCC has developed in an attempt to streamline and standardizing the most common diagnostics operations.

“After years of observing the diagnostics process, we saw a way to streamline and standardize the most common diagnostics operations,” Dan Risley CCC vice president of Quality Repair and Market Development said in an email. “First, we created three standard operations for pre-, post- and in-process scans and we’ve since expanded those three to 23.”

At least three major diagnostic companies have yet to integrate the line items, one of which is still considering if they will. Making the change could mean more information shared with CCC, one company has said. CCC and all three of the companies agree that the 23 items don’t encompass all the work that could be needed to properly perform diagnostic procedures.

Risley said repairers have the choice to use the standard line items, the part code table, or create a manual line entry.

“As vehicle complexity has evolved, the industry has been challenged with accurately and consistently documenting the repairs needed specifically related to scanning, programming, and calibrations,” Risley said. “In general, standardization of the most common operations creates a common nomenclature which is important to improve efficiency, communication, and documentation in the claims handling process. It creates consistency and clarity for the repairer, insurer, and vehicle owner.”

The 23 standard lines reflect the most common operations used today, Risley said.

“This list is dynamic, and we will continue to add to this list as we receive feedback from our customers,” he said. “To account for less common operations or new ADAS features requiring calibration or programming, we’ve built in flexibility. Included in the 23 standard lines are options for “Other calibration operation” and “Other diagnostic services.” Users can choose one of those two lines and insert a note to provide a description of the calibration or programming that is included on the estimate.”

Risley said collision repairers and insurers have asked for a solution to address the variability and inconsistency occurring in the estimating process, their data, and reporting.

Those 23 entries include:

• • Pre-repair scan
  • In-process repair scan
  • Post-repair scan
  • Calibrate adaptive headlight
  • Calibrate automatic high beams
  • Calibrate backup camera
  • Calibrate blind spot radar
  • Calibrate front radar sensor
  • Calibrate heads-on display
  • Calibrate lane keep assist camera
  • Calibrate LiDAR sensor
  • Calibrate night vision
  • Calibrate occupant classification system
  • Calibrate park distance sensor
  • Calibrate rear radar sensor
  • Calibrate steering angle sensor
  • Calibrate surround view camera
  • Calibrate drive
  • Other Calibration operation
  • Program module
  • Program TPMS
  • OEM access fee
  • Other diagnostic services

“The integration coupled with the use of MOTOR database entries will also drive consistency and reduce manual reviews,” Erie says. “Our goal is to have a more streamlined process for auto-approval on estimates and final bills ensuring a timely repair.”

The notice also states the process changes would start Thursday and strongly encourages those in the DRP to use one of four diagnostics providers including Airpro Diagnostics, asTech, Elitek, and Opus IVS.

As of Wednesday, three of the tools mentioned by Erie, Opus, Airpro, and asTech had yet to integrate the 23 database entries. Erie and Elitek did not respond to questions by the deadline that RDN sent.

“Today, Opus IVS does not have the 23-line items implemented for any of our customers,” said Kathy McDaniel, Opus head of marketing, in a statement. “We do have some collision shop customers who have requested that we report their data into CCC in this format, and for that reason, we are planning to offer this option in the future. The first we heard of Erie’s announcement was through a social media post that was forwarded to us a few days ago. If our customers request this feature to report to Erie under the 23-line items, we will be happy to work with them to implement it.”

The statement adds that it will not be feasible for the company to implement the changes by Erie’s proposed start date of Aug. 1.

“Significant changes like this require substantial effort to complete,” the statement says.

Josh McFarlin, AirPro president and COO, said his company has not adopted the 23 line items and is still evaluating the “internal effort, as well as the benefits and impacts to our customers.”

“As an integrated remote diagnostics partner with CCC we work with our customers, the repair facilities, to support their workflow in the CCC suite of products,” McFarlin said. “If our customer elects to opt-in and take advantage of the convenience of our integration, we transfer the relevant info for the services we provide so that it is associated with the repair in the customer’s CCC account and they do not have to manually upload it.”

Repairify, which owns asTech, sent a statement that says it’s actively working on integrating adasThink into CCC which will allow for “seamless identification of calibration events which we expect to be available within the next 30 days.”

When the diagnostic companies were asked if the 23 standard items would provide CCC with any new data that the company is not already getting there were conflicting responses between AirPro and Opus. Repairify did not answer the question.

“Our understanding of this change is that if we implement it and our customers opt-in, we will not be transferring any different information than we are today,” McFarlin said. “The intent of the change, as we understand it, is to create standardized labels for the work types being performed.”

While Opus responded, “Yes. Opus currently reports ADAS calibrations as Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3. Level 1 is a calibration that involves software coding or programming, Level 2 is a dynamic calibration, and Level 3 is a static calibration with targets required. The CCC 23-line items do not contain ADAS Level 1, Level 2, or Level 3. Instead, they break out the ADAS calibrations by system type. Reporting this as 23-line items will now include the data of the system type being calibrated.”

AirPro, Opus, and Repairify agreed that the 23 standard line items do not include all the work that is performed in the diagnostics and calibration space.

“CCC has identified 23 standard line items and we have well over 1,300 different service operations that we perform on a regular basis for our customers,” McFarlin said. “We use this level of detail to assist with documentation and it supports our itemized services pricing model that we make available to our customers as an option. As an example of the gap: we have identified 187 different ADAS calibration operations based on year/make/model and nomenclature specifics, the standardized list from CCC has 15 different calibration categories.”

Opus said there are several dimensions to diagnostics and calibrations and capturing all the dimensions could be difficult.

“The 23 items describe one dimension,” Opus said. “Depending on how the data is being used, there may be value in additional dimensions. Additionally, a single line item to describe a calibration does not consider variations a shop might experience across brands and models. These variations could require different tools, additional labor, training, and skills, as well as brand-specific requirements.”

Repairify didn’t answer the question directly but did say CCC sought input on what line entries were necessary and the diagnostic company offered feedback. It noted if something doesn’t fit into a category, the “other” category can be used.

The diagnostic companies were also asked if they had any concerns or saw any benefits to the 23-line item change.

“AirPro is still evaluating the internal effort to make this change,” McFarlin said. “We have put a great deal of thought and energy into establishing the naming conventions and meanings for each of the services we provide to our customers. We want to be careful that we are not creating a problem or obstacle for our customers by making this change.”

Opus responded, “Opus defaults to supporting what our collision repair customers want, and our decision to offer this is based on requests from some of our customers.”

Repairify didn’t answer the question directly but said the new integration of adasThink into CCC will have the following benefits:

• • Significant time savings on research and data entry as their adasThink report will go directly into the estimating file.
  • Much more detailed reporting on what type of calibration events are being performed.
    Will no longer need to create a parts table or do manual lines for calibrations that have been identified.

Risley says CCC believes the expanded list will only help the collision repair industry by providing better transparency and communication.

“By listening to our customers, we’ve been able to deliver solutions to help them standardize the complex process of diagnostics management,” Risley said. “With CCC ONE, our aim is to help drive efficiency in the process, while supporting a common approach to diagnostics documentation that can help user workflows and customer communication.”

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