Volume 2 Issue 1 SEPTEMBER Client Bulletin

Transcription

1 Volume 2 Issue 1 Client Bulletin Enterprise Payment Solutions (EPS) An integrated suite of remote deposit capture, ACH and card transaction processing solutions, risk management tools, reporting capabilities, and more for financial institutions of all sizes.

2 Contents ACH Healthcare Payments 3 EPS Joins ESP for Enhancement Requests 4 Joining the EPS ProfitStars User Group 5 Update! Scanner Device Certification and Integration Project 5 ACH Rules: September 2013 Updates 6 EPS Online Training Schedule 7 Education on the Learning Management System (LMS) ProfitStars Educational Conference 9 For Clients Portal: Information at the Click of a Mouse 9 EPS Resources and Contact Information 10 EPS Client Bulletin 11 02

3 ACH Healthcare Payments By Tammy Wilson, EPS senior product manager The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) has received a great deal of press since its passage in One of the lesser discussed requirements in the act is a call for the reduction of healthcare administrative costs. In case you are wondering why the act covered the topic of payments, here are some interesting facts that help illustrate the story. Total U.S. healthcare spending is $2.7 trillion dollars per year, roughly 18 percent of the total U.S. GDP. Of that amount, it is estimated that percent of the costs are administrative. Today, only 30 percent of healthcare payments are made via ACH, which leaves approximately 1.75 billion payments being made with a more costly paper check. The low electronic payment adoption is generally attributed to loosely defined standards that are difficult to implement across the industry. To this point, the PPACA Administrative Simplification Section 1104 requires that standards and operating rules be established to alleviate these adoption challenges so that further cost savings can be achieved. To streamline the payments process, the Department of Health and Human Services adopted the electronic funds transfer (EFT) standards for healthcare payments proposed by NACHA. The healthcare industry EFT standards go into effect in January 2014, and require that all Medicare providers accept EFT payments starting at that time. Other healthcare providers are not required by the act to accept EFT, but healthcare plans may require EFT acceptance in their contracts with providers. The NACHA Operating Rule amendments to support the EFT standards go into effect on September 20, There are five main components to the NACHA Healthcare Payments amendment. It establishes that the CCD+ transaction must contain a Company Entry Description of HCCLAIMPMT if it is a healthcare EFT transaction. It establishes that the Company Name must contain the name of the health plan or the name of the entity to which the healthcare provider submits its claims. Additionally, it establishes that the CCD transaction must contain a single addenda record that adheres to the ANSI ASC X12 Version TRN data segment that includes the Reassociation Trace Number. The addenda record data is critical in linking the payment information to an electronic remittance advice (ERA) that is transmitted to the healthcare provider outside of the ACH network. The Receiving Depository Financial Institution (RDFI) must provide the data from the Payment-Related Information field to the healthcare provider no later than the opening of business on the second banking day following settlement of the entry. The RDFI must also provide a secure, electronic means for the healthcare provider to access or receive the payment-related information with a minimum of 128-bit RC4 encryption. The tilde ( ~ ) is added to the backslash ( \ ) as a valid terminator for data segments in the addenda record. The rule adds new definitions of terms to include healthcare-specific concepts and to define a non-consumer account. Whether it is providing payment-related information to doctors, clinics, and hospitals for received transactions or it is supporting the origination of healthcare payments for insurance companies, any FI serving customers in the healthcare industry will be impacted with this NACHA amendment. To support the requirements of this significant initiative, ProfitStars Enterprise Payment Solutions (EPS) is providing the following software enhancements: 03

4 To allow an RDFI to monitor healthcare activity, ACH Manager includes an Incoming Healthcare Transactions Report that reflects all healthcare payments received including the associated payment-related information addenda content. ACH Manager FIs will now have the ability to create a custom export that allows the RDFI to generate a file containing healthcare payment details for delivery to receivers that require it. The export functionality is not limited to healthcare payments and can be used for other custom reporting as well. Future releases are planned to provide automated, secure delivery of healthcare reports to selected receivers. If the ODFI has health plan customers or members that are issuing healthcare payments to providers, ACH Client can support the health plan origination needs through the upload of a NACHA file or through manual entry of the CCD+ transaction and addenda data. These enhancements will be ready for use when the NACHA amendment goes into effect on September 20, For more information about other ACH rules changes that go into effect at the same time, please see the article, ACH Rules: September 2013 Updates, also in this bulletin. EPS Joins ESP for Enhancement Requests By Brad Gane, EPS client services senior business analyst Enterprise Payment Solutions (EPS) is pleased to present a new and improved method for capturing enhancement requests with our Enhancement Submission Process (ESP), the online tool that Jack Henry & Associates, Inc. (JHA) uses for clients to submit enhancement requests for the products they license. To access ESP, users will log in to the For Clients Portal. (Credentials for the For Clients Portal are set up by the financial institution s For Clients administrator or FC admin. To determine your financial institution s FC admin, please us at ESPadmin@jackhenry.com.) On the For Clients Portal, select Tools/Administration ESP. ESP user guides, online training, and additional information are available on the ESP Home page of the For Clients Portal. To enter your requests, click the ESP logo. No separate login credentials are necessary. ESP puts the control in the hands of the financial institution (FI). In addition to providing the ability to capture an enhancement request, ESP also provides a discussion board that may be used internally by the FI, where FI employees may enter suggestions, discuss these suggestions, and then submit them as enhancements. How the FI determines their enhancement submission process is totally up to them. Once an FI submits an enhancement, they may track the enhancement request all the way through ESP. During the submission phase, each enhancement request goes through a review process, where JHA may contact the FI to get clarification and/or receive additional information. The enhancement may be declined (at which time, the FI receives an alert), or the enhancement may be passed on to the Voting phase. Each financial institution will receive 100 votes to be used during the Voting phase, for each EPS product they license. Specifically, these 100-vote blocks are available for ACH Manager, ACH Client/Remote Deposit Express, EPS Payments Platform, Remote Deposit Anywhere, and SmartSight. After the voting phase has been completed, a voting Results Catalog will be available for review, and an internal JHA final review phase takes place. Once the final review phase is completed, a Ranked Enhancement Catalog is available for review, which contains enhancements that have been selected for future releases. Of the enhancements not listed in the Ranked Enhancement Catalog, the top remaining enhancements based on votes will be stored for the next Voting phase, and all other requests will be delivered back to the submitting FI. 04

5 The system sends alerts when a session (one for each product) enters the submission phase or the voting phase. Please be on the lookout for these alerts so that you have the opportunity to participate in this exciting new process. Your vote counts! Special Note: Starting in September, FIs may begin capturing their own suggestions. During the initial rollout of ESP in October, however, we will only go through the voting phase, in order to vote on the enhancement requests submitted using the previous methodology. In November, soon after voting has completed, we will start the submission phase in ESP, where FIs will be able to submit the suggestions they have been capturing. At that time, all scheduled phases will be posted for the next year so that FIs may plan accordingly. Joining the EPS ProfitStars User Group Membership is easy and free. As long as your FI is an active user of one or more ProfitStars EPS solutions, you may join. Go to Sign in with a Google account associated with your work address. Click Apply for membership. Select how you would like to be notified of new group posts, set your nickname, and click Apply to this group. Update! Scanner Device Certification and Integration Project By Joanne Foster, EPS R & D business analyst As we reported in the March issue of the EPS Client Bulletin, Enterprise Payment Solutions continues to make progress with planned enhancements for the new scanner device certification and integration project, including the following: Support for scanners on Microsoft Windows 8 and Internet Explorer 10. New technology that will provide a long-term solution (the current solution uses technology slated to be dropped from Internet Explorer in a future version). A cleaner and simpler user interface and experience. An easy process to convert merchants from the existing Scan Check to the new Remote Deposit Scan functionality and from the existing Remote Deposit Capture to the new Remote Deposit Complete functionality. 05

6 ACH Rules: September 2013 Updates By Amity Jones, AAP, EPS technical writer With this biannual update to the NACHA Operating Rules and Guidelines, effective September 20, there are two significant additions and two smaller adjustments or clarifications to procedures. Healthcare Payments The implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), or Healthcare Reform, ushers in some substantial changes to the rules. NACHA makes the vital point that the healthcare changes affect every financial institution in the U.S., since every FI serves at least some portion of the participants, whether physicians, hospitals, chiropractors, midwives, group homes, or any providers or plans. In support of the upcoming PPACA initiatives, the CCD+ payment type will be leveraged in conjunction with the new Reassociation Trace Number to move and track payments to those providers and plans. Additionally, since a component of PPACA directs Medicare to convert all of its check payments to ACH by the first of January 2014, 13.1 million payments (30 percent of their total payments) will finally begin entering the network. There are a few important file changes to note. Within ACH files, healthcare transactions will be identified by the label HCCLAIMPMT in the batch header, will list the health plan or third-party administrator in the Company Name field, and will contain the unique Reassociation Trace Number in the addenda record. RDFIs can use the batch header record to recognize incoming healthcare payments, and they must make the payment information available to providers automatically, such as on an online banking statement, or upon provider request (excluding mail, fax, and unsecured ). For helpful resources and detailed information on this important initiative, visit healthcare.nacha.org. ACH Security Framework With sections affecting a lot of network players including ODFIs, RDFIs, non-consumer originators, and third-party service providers (most notably third-party senders), the new security framework seeks to address ever-increasing data security risks by establishing security minimums that must be in place to protect ACH records during all phases of processing. The security framework is made up of three crucial points of protection. First, ODFIs must utilize commercially reasonable methods to establish the identity of each non-consumer Originator or third-party sender with which it executes an agreement to originate transactions. Second, all defined participants are required to establish, implement, and, where necessary, update security policies, procedures, and systems related to the initiation, processing, and storage of entries. Since it is comprised of protected information, each stop along the way of a consumer transaction s existence (creation, uploading, downloading, transmission, and eventual archiving/ warehousing) must be safeguarded. Last, participating DFIs, third-party service providers, and third-party senders are required to certify that they have met the minimum data security controls as part of their annual ACH compliance audit (Self-Assessment). FIs may decide to protect business data with the same controls set up in the security framework, but the framework specifically involves non-public financial and personal information of natural persons. The Self- Assessment procedures must be in place and included in your FI s yearly audit completed by December 31, In fact, many FIs may find they are already in compliance with this update since it defines security minimums. 06

7 Changes to Originator Obligations NOCs for Single Entries Previously, Originators were required to respond to all Notifications of Change (NOCs) for single-entry transactions. After September 20, although the ODFI is still responsible for passing on the requested changes to the originator, this adjustment to the rule leaves it to the originator s discretion as to whether they will follow up on the NOC for one-time transactions of certain payment types. Originator action on the following SEC types is now optional: ARC, BOC, POP, RCK, XCK, and single TEL and WEB transactions. An Originator may decide to implement the changes based on the type of business and whether there is a possibility that they will have a continuing relationship with the Receiver involving future transactions. RDFIs can continue to send NOCs for single-entry items, while recognizing that the changes requested for the specified types of one-time transactions may not occur. Effective Period of Stop Payments to Non-Consumer Accounts Before this update, six months was the set timeframe that a stop-payment order related to a debit was active, unless renewed. NACHA added two new circumstances under which a stop-payment to a non-consumer account ends: the debit to which the stop-payment order relates is returned, or the receiving organization itself withdraws the stop-payment order. This rule change mirrors what some RDFIs were already doing and further correlates corporate and consumer stop payment procedures. For More Information Questions about how these changes affect your organization? More information, including detailed FAQs for each September update, is available online at NACHA.org. Under ACH Rules, click Recent and Upcoming Amendments. You may also contact your Regional ACH Association (RPA) with rules update questions. EPS Online Training Schedule COURSE TITLE PRESENTER DATE PRICE ACH ACH Audit Review WACHA September 19 $150 ACH Third-Party Sender Risk Viewpointe October 8 $100 ACH Become the Stop Payments Expert WACHA October 8 $100 ACH Tech Specs: File Formatting The Clearing House October 15 $150 Remote Deposit Real Remote Deposit Capture Risk Challenges EastPay October 15 $100 ACH Hot Topics in the Payments World: Are You in Compliance? WACHA November 5 $100 ACH ACH Rules Update for 2014 (The Clearing House) Remote Deposit Remote Deposit Capture Risks and Vendor Management The Clearing House November 19 $150 EPCOR November 20 $100 ACH ACH Rules Changes for 2014 (WACHA) WACHA December 4 $150 Note: Training sessions, instructors, prices, and times are subject to change. 07

8 Education on the Learning Management System (LMS) Please follow the steps below to view and/or to register for elearning on the LMS. Click here for answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs) about the Learning Management System. 1. Log in to the For Clients Portal with your established username and password. For first-time users of the For Clients Portal, go to and select the click here link to submit an access request. 2. Select Education Learning Management System. The Welcome page should display. Please note: If the Learning Management System option is missing under the Education menu, your For Clients Portal Admin will need to grant you the authority to use the LMS. 3. On the right under Browse for Training, select ACH (to search for general, ACH/Remote Deposit/Check elearnings), or select EPS twice (to search for product-specific elearnings). The Search page will display. 4. Deselect the checkboxes under the Event, Test, and Material icons. (Only the checkboxes under the Online Class and Curriculum icons should be selected to access elearnings.) 5. Select the Search button. 6. A list of the available elearning training will display at the bottom of the page. Select the elearning titles to review the respective course descriptions. Please note that only designated elearning courses are eligible for AAP continuing education credits. 7. Once you have chosen an elearning for which you want to register, under the course description select Add to Cart. 8. On the bottom-right, select Proceed to Checkout. 9. Review the contents of your shopping cart. If applicable, enter your coupon code. Select Next. 10. From the drop-down menu, choose one of the available payment methods (i.e., Credit Card, Send Bill, or Training Unit). If you choose Credit Card, enter your credit card information, and then select Next. If you choose Send Bill, select Next. If you choose Training Unit, type your Training Unit Key Code in the available field, and select Apply. Then select Next. 11. To confirm your purchase, select Place Order. 12. Once you have completed registration, you will receive a confirmation . When an elearning request has been received in the LMS, access to the elearning will be available for a period of five (5) business days. During this period, you (as the registered user) will have unlimited access to the elearning. For general questions about elearning, please contact EPS Education by sending an to epseducationtraining@profitstars.com. 08

9 2014 ProfitStars Educational Conference The 2014 ProfitStars Educational Conference (PEC) will be held March 10-13, 2014, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. For Clients Portal: Information at the Click of a Mouse The EPS For Clients Portal ( provides quick access to several different types of information covering ACH Client, Remote Deposit Express, ACH Manager (Web and Windows versions), scanners, and the EPS Payments Platform. These resources include the following: EPS announcements Release Notes for the EPS Payments Platform, ACH Client, Remote Deposit Express, and ACH Manager Release documentation for the EPS Payments Platform, ACH Client, Remote Deposit Express, and ACH Manager FAQs for ACH Client and Remote Deposit Express Scanner troubleshooting documents and videos EPS Client Bulletin EPS holiday schedule To access the For Clients Portal, users need to be set up by the FI s For Clients administrator or FC admin. To determine your FI s FC admin, please us at ESPadmin@jackhenry.com. 09

10 EPS Resources and Contact Information EPS Support Hours: 8:00 a.m. 9:00 p.m. ET Phone: Fax: EPS Product Help/Documentation Comments/Suggestions Release and support documentation are available on the Partner Portal and the For Clients Portal: ITMS User Code Requests Audit-Related Requests Billing/Accounting Requests Hardware Sales Requests Sales Inquiries EPS Education Inquiries EPS Client Bulletin Suggestions 10

11 EPS Client Bulletin September 2013, Volume 2 Issue Jack Henry & Associates, Inc. Contributors: Joanne Foster, Brad Gane, Laura Goforth, Amity Jones, Amber Mitchell, and Tammy Wilson. EPS Client Bulletin is a publication of ProfitStars Enterprise Payment Solutions. It is distributed quarterly to our contact database. To unsubscribe, please contact EPS Support at epssupport@profitstars.com. We welcome any comments or suggestions you may have about this newsletter. Please send them to epspublications@profitstars.com. The following are trademarks or registered trademarks of Jack Henry & Associates, Inc.: ACH Client, ACH Manager, Jack Henry & Associates, ProfitStars, Remote Deposit Anywhere, Remote Deposit Express, and SmartSight. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Additional information is available at or by calling Copyright Jack Henry & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved. ProfitStars is a registered trademark of Jack Henry & Associates, Inc. 11