What is HPOS and how do I install it?

HPOS is an acronym for Health Professionals Online Services. This is a web-based service provided by Medicare that allow providers to send and retrieve various types of information to/from Medicare. For anaesthetic practices, the main benefit is being able to retrieve and check patient's Medicare numbers.

Certificate installation

Your Eclipse location certificate can be used to access HPOS. However, the installation process is quite different to the Eclipse installation process.

1.	Insert the Medicare CD and view the list of files.

Double click on fac_encrypt.p12. Follow the prompts and accept all the default settings. Enter your Medicare PIC code into the password field on the third page. (If you want to enter your own password every time you log onto HPOS services, you should check the box ‘Enable strong private key protection…’ on page 3 of the dialog box. See the more detailed instructions below if you want to do this.)

3.	Double click on fac_sign.p12 and follow the prompts, again entering your PIC on page 3.

4.	Double click on trust.p12, and follow the prompts. Use the generic password Pass-123 instead of your Medicare PIC.

Logging on to HPOS

After installing the certificate, log on to HPOS as follows…

Go to http://www.humanservices.gov.au/ , click on ‘Health professionals’, click on HPOS Logon.

To check Medicare details, click Log on using PKI Site Certificate.

If it doesn't work, try the following in order.

1.	Close and reopen the browser and try again.

2.	Change settings to allow popups. For example, in Chrome, Go to Customise and control (=) > Settings > Advanced > Privacy > Content settings > Make sure popups are allowed. Close and reopen browser and try again.

3.	Delete the browsing history, close and reopen the browser and try again.

Check that the certificates are installed in the browser. Customise > Settings > Advanced > Certificates. Personal tab should show your practice name. Intermediate should have 2 Medicare certificates with future expiry dates. Trusted tab should have 1 Medicare certificate with future expiry date. If these are missing, you may need to 'Install the Chain of Trust'. See the Medicare website PKI page for instructions on this, and instructions for configuring the web browser.

Renewing a certificate

If you have renewed your Eclipse location certificate, you may need to follow this procedure to get HPOS working again.

If you have just received a new certificate on a CD without requesting it, and the CD has the code SHA2, install using these instructions.

Individual certificates

If you have an individual certificate, you will be able to access additional functions. The most useful of these is that

doctors can add practice locations and provider numbers. There is little to gain for group practices in having individual

certificates for their doctors.

Problems

There is a Troubleshooting Guide on the Medicare website. Alternatively contact the Medicare eBusiness service

centre on 1800 700 199.