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Alberta · AHCIP · H-Link

Ninety days. Then it is unpaid work.

Alberta stops paying ninety days after the date of service — not the date you invoiced, and a refusal on day eighty does not reset the clock. A claim that quietly ages out is not a billing error you can go back and fix. It is a day your clinic worked for nothing.

Qlynic ages every claim from day one, raises it long before it reaches the shoulder, and files straight to Alberta Health on Arxeon’s accredited H-Link submitter. No gateway taking a cut of your billing. No fee per claim.

How Qlynic bills Alberta See where a claim stops
$89 per doctor, per month Accredited H-Link submitter No per-claim fee Data stays in Canada

The submission window

90 days · from the date of service · Gen 123

“A claim for benefits is not payable if it is submitted more than 90 days after the date on which the health service was provided or the patient was discharged from the hospital.”

Alberta Health — AHCIP Bulletin Gen 123, in force since 31 March 2020

The route

Five places a claim can stop. Only one of them tells you.

A claim is not one action, it is five. Between the room and the deposit it changes hands four times, and the ninety days keep running through every one of them.

  1. DAY 0 · the clock starts

    The encounter

    The doctor sees the patient and records what was done. Every fact the claim will later assert — the service, the diagnosis, the patient's identity — is decided here. A claim can never be more accurate than the note it came from.

    Stops here when the note is finished days later. Qlynic starts the claim from the encounter itself, so the record and the claim are written once, together.

  2. the clock is running

    The claim is built

    Service codes, diagnostic codes, the Personal Health Number and the practitioner identifiers are assembled into the format Alberta Health requires.

    Stops here when a field is wrong — and you find out weeks later, with the clock already spent. Qlynic checks the claim as it is built, not after Alberta Health has rejected it.

  3. the clock is running

    Submission over H-Link

    The claim is transmitted to Alberta Health under an accredited submitter attached to a business arrangement. This is the step most clinics never see and most vendors quietly hand to a gateway.

    Stops here when a batch silently fails. Qlynic submits directly on Arxeon's accredited H-Link submitter — no gateway in the middle, no per-claim fee, and a failed batch is an alert rather than a silence.

  4. the clock is running

    Assessment

    Alberta Health assesses the claim against the Schedule of Medical Benefits. It is paid, paid differently, held, or refused — and the answer arrives as an explanatory code rather than a sentence.

    Stops here when nobody reads the remittance. Qlynic puts the explanatory code into plain English the day it lands and tells you which claim it belongs to.

  5. DAY 90 · the clock stops

    Corrected and resubmitted

    A refused claim has to be understood, corrected and sent again — still inside the original ninety days from the date of service, not ninety days from the refusal.

    This is where the money actually disappears. Qlynic ages every open claim from day one and escalates it long before the shoulder, so nothing reaches day ninety unnoticed.

The plumbing

H-Link is free. Someone is still charging you.

Alberta Health does not charge a clinic to submit a claim. Every per-claim fee on your bill is a private company standing in the middle of a route that did not need one.

free

H-Link itself costs nothing

Alberta Health calls it “an easy, fast, efficient way for health providers to do online business with the Alberta Health Care Insurance Plan” and states the service is free to use. If you are paying per claim, you are paying an intermediary — not the province.

required

An accredited submitter

Alberta Health states that all business arrangements must have an accredited submitter attached in order for claims to be submitted for payment. You can become your own, or bill under an existing one. Qlynic clinics bill under Arxeon’s.

not a thing

“Government-approved” software

There is no such status. Alberta Health states: “You can use your own billing software. Approval from the ministry is not required nor support given for your software.” Any vendor claiming otherwise is selling you something that does not exist.

The limit

A refusal on day eighty does not buy you ninety more days.

This is the detail that costs Alberta clinics the most money, and it is the one almost every billing guide leaves out. The window is measured from the service, once, and everything that happens afterwards happens inside it.

One claim · the account days, not dollars

Opening
The window Alberta Health allows, measured from the date of service.
90 days
Day 00
Service providedThe patient is seen. The clock starts here — not when you invoice.
—
Day 62
Claim built, submitted, answeredEverything up to the assessment coming back. Sixty-two days, gone.
− 62
Day 80
Refused · explanatory code returnedThe claim is wrong, or held. Now it has to be understood, corrected and sent again.
− 18
Day 90
Not payableThe service date is ninety days old. There is no claim to make any more.
0 days
The clock starts
At the date of service, or the date the patient was discharged from hospital. Not the date you built the claim, and not the date you invoiced.
It does not restart
A claim refused on day eighty leaves ten days, not ninety. The limit is measured against the original service date every time you resubmit.
It replaced 180 days
The ninety-day limit has been in force since 31 March 2020. Guidance written before that date is wrong by a factor of two.
The exception route
Alberta Health may consider extenuating circumstances case by case — disasters that destroy records such as fire or flood, fraud, theft of records, and claims refused by the Workers’ Compensation Board. It is an exception process. It is not a plan.
What Qlynic does
Ages every open claim from the date of service, shows that age in days on the claim itself rather than buried in a report, and escalates it before the shoulder — so no claim reaches day ninety without someone having been told twice.

Before you sign anything

Six questions worth asking any Alberta billing vendor.

Including us. If a vendor cannot answer these in one sentence each, that is the answer.

01

Do you submit directly, or through a gateway?

If there is a gateway, ask what it charges and whether that is per claim. H-Link itself is free — every per-claim fee is a private company, not the province.

02

Whose accredited submitter is used?

Yours or theirs. Both are legitimate. You should simply know which, because it decides who Alberta Health pays and who chases a failed batch.

03

Where do I see a claim’s age in days?

Ask them to show you the screen, not the report. “It’s in the export” is not the same as a number on the claim.

04

What happens the day a claim is refused?

Does someone get told, or does it sit in a remittance file until month end? Against a ninety-day limit, the difference is the claim.

05

Where is the data stored?

Health information carries obligations under Alberta’s Health Information Act. Ask for the hosting region in writing, not in a sales call.

06

What does it cost to leave?

Ask for an export of your own clinical and billing data, in a format you can read, before you sign rather than after.

Our answers, in order Directly, on Arxeon’s accredited submitter · ours, unless you bring your own · on the claim row itself, in days · you are told the same day · Microsoft Azure, Canada Central · export your own data any time, no exit fee.

Questions

The five that get asked most

How long do Alberta physicians have to submit an AHCIP claim?
90 days. AHCIP Bulletin Gen 123 states that a claim for benefits is not payable if it is submitted more than 90 days after the date on which the health service was provided or the patient was discharged from hospital. The limit took effect on 31 March 2020.
What is H-Link?
H-Link is Alberta Health’s electronic claims system for doing business with the Alberta Health Care Insurance Plan. Alberta Health describes it as an easy, fast, efficient way for health providers to do online business with AHCIP, and the service is free to use.
Do I need an accredited submitter to bill AHCIP?
Yes. Alberta Health states that all business arrangements must have an accredited submitter attached to them in order for claims to be submitted for payment. A physician can become their own accredited submitter or join an existing submitter’s business arrangement.
Does Alberta Health approve medical billing software?
No. Alberta Health states that you can use your own billing software, that approval from the ministry is not required, and that no support is given for your software. Files sent to the AHCIP office must however match the format in the Electronic Claims Submission Specifications Manual. Treat any vendor claiming to be government-approved with suspicion.
Can a claim be submitted after the 90-day limit?
Only by exception. Alberta Health may consider extenuating circumstances case by case — examples given include disasters that destroy records such as fire or flood, fraud, theft of records, and claims refused by the Workers’ Compensation Board. It is an exception process, not a routine one, so the practical answer is to submit inside 90 days.

Sources. Every statement of fact on this page comes from Alberta Health:

H-Link electronic claims system — Alberta.ca
Physician’s Resource Guide — Open Government, Alberta
AHCIP Bulletin Gen 123 — claim submission time limit, Open Government, Alberta

This page is general information about how AHCIP claims are processed. It is not billing, legal or accounting advice, and it is not a statement on behalf of Alberta Health. Rules change — check the source before relying on anything here. Last reviewed 19 August 2026.

Ninety days

Claims do not age out because billing is hard.
They age out because nobody was counting.

Qlynic counts. Every open claim carries its age in days from the date of service, every refusal arrives translated the same day, and every claim goes straight to Alberta Health on an accredited H-Link submitter.

How Qlynic bills Alberta Talk to the person who built it

$89 per doctor, per month No base fee No per-claim fee No contract