File Guideline and Layout Legend (Non-Claims)

Data Element ID

Unique identifier representing data element by file type

Data Element

Data element name

Description

Data element definition and associated values with definition

Type

Date – Identifies value as date; must be represented as YYYY-MM-DD

Integer – Identifies value as whole number

Numeric – Identifies values containing digits from 0 to 9 and a sign and/or a decimal point where required; If dollar amount, represent dollars and cents with decimals (e.g., 25.79)

Text – Identifies values as having variable length alphanumeric characters

Format*

char – A fixed-length element of characters. Values must be the same as the specified length column. This can be any type of data but is governed by the type listed for the element, such as Text versus Numeric. One example is a ZIP Code value of ‘3415’ which will be submitted as ‘03415’ because the ZIP Code field has a specified field length of 5. For the ‘char’ format, the length definition is a requirement, and not a maximum.

varchar– A variable length field of characters. Values cannot be longer than the specified length column. This can be any type of data but is governed by the type listed for the element, such as Text versus Numeric

int – A variable length field containing numeric values. Values cannot be longer than the specified length column. Records with numeric value formats cannot contain decimal points or leading zeroes.

unsigned int - A variable length field containing a non-negative integer.

YYYY-MM-DD - Required format for dates with year, month, and day.

decimal – Numeric value with up to four digits to the right of the decimal.

*The plus/minus (±) symbol preceding the format indicates that a negative can be submitted in the element under the specified conditions.

Length

The definite or maximum width of a data element value. For example, for a dollar amount value of 15.25, the length indicator would be 10,2, representing a 10-digit numeric value (“10”) with up to 2 decimal places allowed (“,2”).

Coverage

Describes the percentage of rows in the file containing data for the specified data element. Percentages are rounded down to the nearest increment of five. For example, if the actual coverage is 92.99%, the value in the Coverage column will be 90.00%. Exceptions do apply: coverage values between 99.01 and 99.99 are represented as 99%, coverage values between 0.01 and 0.99 are represented as < 1%. Note, coverage percentages are approximate and may change with each update.