Visual Practice HOW TO

...Cycle your HCV Password every 35 days

Ministry of Health Security Overview

The Health Card Validation (HCV) system runs on the Ministry of Health mainframe.   HCV needs to be a secure system because it grants query access to the Registered Persons Database which contains OHIP insured patient information including health card numbers and version codes.

The security system protecting the HCV application is an IBM mainframe program called RACF (Resource Access Control Facility).  A common RACF security requirement is the changing of passwords on a scheduled basis.  The Ministry of Health has made it a RACF requirement that HCV users using the HCV service change their passwords every 35 days.  This can be annoying to say the least.  Especially when you try to connect after 35 days without changing your password, and the system denies you access.  It is important to initiate password changes before 35 days pass since your last password change, or you will need to contact the Ministry of Health HCV Helpdesk to reactivate your access with a new password.

The Ministry of Health encourages software vendors not to script password changing, as it has been their experience that most password scripts are unreliable.  Visual Practice does not use a third party communications program and scripting - Visual Practice has native communications controls found in those third party programs.  As a result, Visual Practice's communications routines are programs, not scripts, and are very reliable. 

Visual Practice does automate the password changing process, however, it still gives you control over the passwords used, making it very easy to make password changes with a Ministry of Health HCV Helpdesk analyst, should it become necessary.  Visual Practice does not initiate password changes - that is left up to the user to do, which is the approach the Ministry of Health prefers you to use.  Visual Practice does automate the password changing process once it is initiated by the user.  The communications portion of the setup of an OHIP billing provider allows you to pre-enter up to 20 passwords that are then cycled through as you change passwords over the time.  This way, you don't need to remember any passwords, you only need to cycle through them once every month or so.  Once the 20 passwords are used up, you can enter new ones, or, Visual Practice simply starts at password number one again.  The RACF security system allows you to reuse the same passwords after 3 months. Provided that a password in your list has not been used for at least three months, it can be reused.

Editing your Password List

Once you've set up your HCV account in Visual Practice, you can change any password in your password list for an OHIP Billing Provider.  This is done through an OHIP Billing Provider's entry in the Provider form, as shown below:

Each password is numbered, and as you cycle a password, Visual Practice changes the HCV password from the Current Password #, to the next password in the list numerically.  On installation Visual Practice generates a series of default random password, however, you can go to the Provider form and change any one or all of the passwords to a password of your choice. 

Cycle your HCV Password

If you need to change the password to one supplied by the Ministry of Health HCV Helpdesk because your current password has expired, simply update the next password in the list from the Current Password #, and do a Cycle HCV Password as shown below:

Visual Practice will connect with HCV and initiate a password change. 

If a password change fails, ensure that you typed the password in correctly and that you typed it into the correct password number in the list.