Provider Notice Issued 02/14/2020

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Date:   February 14, 2020

To:      Long Term Care Facilities - Nursing Facilities (NF), Intermediate Care Facilities for Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities (ICF/IID), Supportive Living Program providers (SLP), Medically Complex for the Developmentally Disabled Facilities (MC/DD), and Specialized Mental Health Rehabilitation Facilities (SMHRF)

Re:      Request for Primary Agency Security Administrator (ASA) Approval to Access the ABE Partner Portal

This notice informs Long Term Care (LTC) providers (hereby referred to as organizations) that the Department of Healthcare and Family Services (HFS) is instituting a new process for organizations to request approval of a Primary Agency Security Administrator (ASA) from the HFS Global Security Administrator (GSA).

This functionality is required for organizations to be able to access and utilize the ABE Partner Portal.  A separate provider notice is being simultaneously issued to further describe the process to Register as an ABE Partner and how to utilize the portal to upload documents.  Each organization using the Partner Portal must identify at least one employee who will act as the Primary ASA.

An organization’s Primary ASA is the point of contact for HFS regarding the Partner Portal and is responsible for approving and taking away access, and record keeping (1706P Form and picture ID) of all users from their organization. The Primary ASA should be able to produce records for each employee upon request by HFS.

Contractors may not be the Primary ASA for organizations, however organization personnel can assign staff at contractor agency as secondary ASAs (up to 4 additional staff can be designated as ASAs).

NEW ASA Registration Process

1.      To be approved as the Primary ASA, users must first create an account at ABE.Illinois.gov. To create an Account a user will need the Medicaid Provider ID Number for each site they will submit/upload data from.

2.      When completing the registration screen, the user must indicate that they are the designated security administrator in the Type of User section.

3.      The Primary ASA will then go to the ABE ASA Request SharePoint site and enter individual account information as well as organization information. The ASA request will be reviewed by the HFS business and security offices before approval. The Primary ASA must be approved and granted access by the HFS GSA before they can approve others in the organization to use the portal.

4.      The Primary ASA should then invite the organization’s remaining users, including additional ASAs, to set up their own ABE User Accounts. Remaining users DO NOT need to register in SharePoint but must submit an ABE Registration Form 1706P to the ASA for record keeping.

5.      Primary ASAs must verify the identity of each ABE Partner Portal user by reviewing and maintaining a copy of each user’s valid picture ID. Valid forms of identification include: 

·         Current and valid US driver’s license or state identity card

·         US passport

·         US military identification

·         Certificate of citizenship or naturalization, and various immigration forms for non-US citizens. 

6.  The Primary ASA must also, prior to leaving their organization, submit a request to remove their account and add a replacement Primary ASA. 

** It is critical that all users remember their username and password as well as the answers to their security questions in case they need to change their password. The user will not be able to make any changes to their account unless they know the answers to their “secret” questions!

Questions regarding this notice may be directed to the Bureau of Long Term Care at

1-844-528-8444.

Doug Elwell

Medicaid Director