I agree wholeheartedly.  Unfortunately there is no real forum that I know of for vendor managers and many that I have dealt with don’t have abstracting experience.  Therefore most VM’s do not really know how to communicate effectively with abstractors; compiled with the issue of automated billing that Robert is referring to create tensions.  Many times it takes a simple call to explain the differences in your area to other parts of your state or other states altogether.  And sometimes it is a hardware/software issue in that no computer system is perfectly adaptable, when your dealing on a nationwide scale there are some things some systems can do and some they cant.  With the wide variety between states and even counties it is hard to be clear to everyone on a unified system.  That was one of my biggest issues as a VM, our assignment program was based on zip code, when you get into Mass or VT the records are filed at the town or village level and there can be tons in one zip code and the suppliers would consistently get pissed because we would send orders for one town and it would actually be somewhere 45 minutes away.  My system could not differentiate and I was told just deal with it, the system cannot be reprogrammed to work that way for one state but not the rest.
Matt