CMS is pleased to announce the availability of Preliminary Medicaid T-MSIS Analytic Files (TAFs) for calendar year 2021. The TAF research files* contain data on Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) beneficiary demographics, program enrollment, service use, and payments. They are designed to meet the diverse research needs of the Medicaid and CHIP data user community.
Beginning with 2019 data, CMS began releasing a “Preliminary” version of the TAF for each service year to give TAF users earlier access to Medicaid data in the research file format. The Preliminary RIF data is not fully mature because states are still submitting service use records for that year, so users should be aware of this when planning their analytics. The 2021 Preliminary TAFs were created based on services submitted to CMS through July 31, 2022 and will thus have at least 6 months of runout for each month. Once the TAF data for that year are fully mature and include at least 12 months of runout for each month, CMS will release an updated version of the RIFs.
*The TAF research files currently include 7 file types:
- Annual Demographics and Eligibility (DE)
- Inpatient (IP)
- Long-Term Care (LT)
- Pharmacy (RX)
- Other Services (OT)
- Annual Managed Care Plan (APL)
- Annual Provider (APR)
The DE file contains demographic, eligibility and enrollment information for all Medicaid and CHIP beneficiaries enrolled for at least one day during the calendar year. The IP, LT, RX, and OT files contain fee-for-service claims, managed care encounter claims, and per-person-per-month capitated payments, plus newly available non-person service payments, for Medicaid and CHIP services, organized by service month. The APL file contains information about each Medicaid and CHIP managed care plan/entity that CMS authorized to operate in a state during the calendar year. Finally, the APR file contains information about the providers that are eligible to render services to Medicaid and CHIP beneficiaries for any month of the year.
TAF data are available for service years 2014 to 2021. Find more information on the data, including record layouts, on this page. To learn how to request TAF data, start here or contact us at resdac@umn.edu or 888-973-7322.