Issued by: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)

Issue Date: October 29, 2014

Program Area: Reinsurance-Contributions (RIC)

Question: When selecting dates for the Snapshot Factor Method or Snapshot Count Method, are the last days of the quarter acceptable? Specifically: March 31st, June 30th and September 30th. These days are consistent, but may not fall in the same week of the quarter.

Answer: Applicable to All Reinsurance Contributions Benefit Years: Yes. When considering a full year's coverage, these methods require the Contributing Entity to add the total number of covered lives of reinsurance contribution enrollees on any date (or more dates, if an equal number of dates are used for each quarter) during the same corresponding month in each of the first three (3) quarters of the calendar year (that is, March, June and September), and dividing that total by the number of dates on which a count was made. The date used for the second and third quarters must fall within the same week of the quarter as the corresponding date used for the first quarter. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) notes that the Contributing Entity may use the last day of each month regardless of the actual week, only if coverage was provided for the full year (January - September). Under the Snapshot Factor Method, the number of lives covered on a date is calculated by adding (1) the number of participants with self-only coverage on the date and (2) the product of the number of participants with coverage other than self-only coverage on the date multiplied by a factor of 2.35.

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