Health Care Facility | Insurers | Related Initiatives
Health Care Facility | Insurers | Related Initiatives  

HCAI Update – Release 3.32: An Early Look at Upcoming Enhancements / June 13, 2024

HCAI System Release 3.32 is scheduled to go live in November of 2024. This bulletin is to provide insurers with an early look at some of the updates included in this release to help facilitate any advance planning. Integrating insurers should also be advised that Release 3.32 will be an integration-impacting release.

Form 1 Redevelopment in a New Framework

  • HCAI is enhancing the Form 1 by redeveloping this form in a new framework, to align with the recent redevelopment of the OCF-21B and OCF-21C.
  • There will be no functional changes to the form’s workflow. The visible changes are largely cosmetic in nature to make for a more efficient user experience, and improve things like text alignment, spacing, the sequencing and consistency of error messages.
  • Insurers who believe they may be impacted by the internal framework redevelopment are encouraged to complete testing for the Form 1 when the test environment becomes available. Information about the test environment will be distributed to integrating insurers in the coming months.

This HCAI communication is intended to provide details about user-facing changes on the HCAI web application. During release development, further internal changes may be applied to any OCF for consistency and other purposes which would not impact the web user experience. The test environment is available prior to each release going live for any required testing.

Enhanced Privacy and Security

  • HCAI is continuously enhancing security and privacy. It is very important to ensure you are able to receive automatic emails from HCAI for purposes such as password resets and verification codes.
  • Ask your IT department to add HCAI’s email address (systemdelivery@hcai.ca) to your safe senders list to ensure you can receive these automatic emails from HCAI.
  • Double-check the email address that is associated with your user account to ensure it is up-to-date. Any user can review the “My Profile” tab when logged in to HCAI for an overview of their user profile information. If your email address requires updating, please ask a User Administrator at your organization to update the information for you.

Further communications outlining complete web application enhancements will be distributed as Release 3.32 approaches.

Updates for Integrating Insurers

System Release 3.32 will be an integration-impacting release.

  • A new version of the All-Data Extract schemas will be distributed to correct an anomaly that was impacting a limited number of insurers who used specific schema validation tools.
  • All integrating insurers who use the All-Data Extract are strongly advised to update and test using the latest version of schemas to avoid being impacted in the future.  
  • Insurers integrated with only the Claim-Claimant Feed are not impacted by this change.

More information will be shared with integrating insurers in the coming months, including an updated technical document and information about the test environment and official testing window.

Reminder for Integrating Insurers

HCAI’s security is continuously enhanced to align with industry best practices. A new list of stronger cipher suites has recently been deployed in the Release 3.31 test environment, and integrating insurers are expected to test their system by June 30, 2024, to ensure it is up-to-date and compatible with this new configuration.

For details, kindly refer to the email distributed by HCAI Insurer Integration Support on April 25, 2024.

Other Important Reminders

This is a reminder that as part of the ongoing maturity of the HCAI system, data retention requirements have been defined.

  • Claims and all associated documents will become candidates for deletion from HCAI seven years after they have been deactivated by the insurer.
  • This is a longer-term project that will not begin as part of System Release 3.32, but ample lead-time is being provided to enable insurers to prepare if necessary.

You will continue to receive communications about this topic as more details become available.

What’s Next?

  • Share this HCAI Update with individuals at your organization who interact with the HCAI system.
  • Keep checking HCAIinfo – HCAI’s dedicated eLearning resource site – over the coming months for more information.