Front Desk integrates with the Medicare Online Claiming software, which uses various security certificates to achieve a secure connection between our software and Medicare/DVA.

Under most circumstances the certificates used for Medicare Online Claiming are updated automatically by Medicare, however there are times when this isn't possible and the certificates must be downloaded and updated manually. This article explains the process of downloading and updating the 'Personal' certificates associated with your business.

Part 1 - Loading your PSI store:
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Note: This is to be completed on a computer that has both Front Desk and the Medicare Online Claiming software installed. Typically only the 'reception' computers have Medicare installed as they are used for billing and claiming.

1) Go to your Control Panel and search for 'PKI Certificate Manager'

2) After opening the PKI Certificate Manager, we must now open your certificate store that contains your Medicare certificates.
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a) Click Setup...
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b) Select 'Use an Existing Store' and click Next.

c) Browse to C:\ProgramData\Smartsoft\Front Desk and open the hic.psi file.

If the hic.psi file is not present in this location please confirm this is a computer used for Medicare Online Claiming before contacting Smartsoft for assistance.
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3) Leave the PKI Certificate Manager open and proceed to Part 2.
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Please skip to Part 3 if you already know your RA Number.
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1) Return to the PKI Certificate Manager.

2) Expand the Issued To column and record the RA number next to your business name. This is 10 characters in length and will be required in later steps.
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3) Leave the PKI Certificate Manager open and proceed to Part 3.

1) Go to the Certificates Australia (Verizon) website:
​https://www.certificates-australia.com.au/general/cert_search_health.shtml

2) In the RA Number field, enter the RA Number you recorded and click Search.

3) Download the two certificates with an expiry date of 2024. Save these two files somewhere convenient.
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​Please note: Due to an error on Medicare's end they revoked an unknown number of '2024' certificates and will re-issue these on March 9th. If you do not see certificates dated '2024' here please try again after March 9th.

Part 4 - Obtaining your PSI Store Passphrase

To proceed with Importing Downloaded Certificates in the next stage of this process, you will need to know your PSI Store Passphrase.

To obtain your passphrase please do the following:

1) Download the PSIPassphrase utility from the following link:

PSI Passphrash Utility

2) Open the downloaded PSIPassphrase.exe file.
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3) When presented with the Front Desk login screen, proceed using your normal Front Desk credentials.
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4) Record the displayed PSI Store Passphrase.

1) Return to the PKI Certificate Manager and select the Personal tab.

2) Select Import and enter the PSI Passphrase you recorded in Part 4, then click Next.

3) When prompted, browse to the certificate files you downloaded in Part 3. Select the 'YOUR_BUSINESS_Sign.cer' file, which is one of the two files you downloaded, and then click Next.

4) Click Finish to finalise the the installation of the FIRST certificate.
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5) Repeat Steps 1 to 4, but this time import the second certificate named 'YOUR_BUSINESS_Encrypt.cer'.

6) Success! As a result of this you should be left with two new certificates in the 'Personal' tab with an expiry date of June 2024*.

If your newly imported certificates (those dated 2024) appear with a small red cross, please refer to this article for further instructions.

7) Success! You have now updated your Medicare certificates.

Note: If you have multiple computers configured for Medicare Online Claiming you will need to repeat this process on those machines.

* Please also note that although these new 'certificates' show an expiry date of 2024, the Medicare Online Claiming service is still scheduled to be decommissioned on September 30, 2022. The service will not continue until June 2024.

Alternatively, you can copy the newly updated certificate store file from this machine (C:\ProgramData\Smartsoft\Front Desk\hic.psi) and paste it into the same directory on your other machines using Medicare Online.