04/25/2011

Medicare HETS 270/271 Submitters:

CMS is making an architectural change to the HETS eligibility database. HETS will refresh per its Medicare eligibility source database on regular schedule until Friday, April 29, 2011. After April 29, 2011 it may take up to 8 days (until Saturday, May 7, 2011) until the next refresh of HETS Medicare eligibility information.

HETS will continue to return a full eligibility response during this period, but the source data will not be refreshed and may, for some beneficiaries, become stale during the period. Medicare Beneficiary information that changes during the period will be corrected in HETS when the data is refreshed (scheduled for no later than Saturday, May 7, 2011). CMS will notify submitters when this issue is resolved and HETS Medicare eligibility has been refreshed.

CMS announces that it will perform maintenance on its data center infrastructure the weekend of May 7-8, 2011. Separate maintenance windows will occur on Saturday, May 7 and Sunday, May 8, 2011. Each maintenance window will begin at 6:00 AM ET and continue until 7:00 PM ET. The HETS 270/271 application will be unavailable during these maintenance periods on both Saturday and Sunday. Attempts to open a connection to the HETS 270/271 application will result in errors.

Please contact the Help Desk if you have questions or comments.

Medicare Customer Assistance Re: Eligibility (MCARE) Help Desk
1-866-324-7315