999 Acknowledgements for HIPAA 5010

It is well documented that in order to generate 999 for HIPAA 5010, BizTalk 2010 CU3 should be downloaded and installed. CU3 install not only updates 999 – 5010 schema that comes with original RTM version, but it also installs bunch of run time DLLs. These DLLs enable BizTalk to generate 999 natively in the new format. But there are some of us that may still be using the RTM version of 999-5010. Pre-CU3 release, BizTalk engine would still generate a 997 but then developers would use a map to convert it into 999 (RTM version).

Here comes the interesting part, which is not documented by Microsoft.  Once CU3 is installed, it will install new 999 – 5010 schema and run times binaries.  But it will not support side-by-side operation of both old and new versions of 999-5010 schemas. Now, this can be an issue if one of your clients wants a more detailed and newer 999 version, which is supported by CU3 patch. We contacted Microsoft support and they confirmed our observation that side-by-side versions are not supported. This means that you either update all the existing clients to the new version or do nothing at all. Depending on how your existing projects are referencing old 999 schema and the corresponding map, this can mean undeploying the complete BizTalk solution from the prod server and deploying it back with the new 999-5010 schema. It also means some kind of regression testing with existing clients to ensure that nothing is breaking on their side when all of a sudden you start sending them the updated 999 files. Knowing that side-by-side versions of 999 are not supported will help us better plan and manage the 999 migration.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below.