US · guidance
CMS Pub. 100-24, ch. 3, § 3.3.1
State Agency Buy-in Exchange Header Record
The state buy-in File Header Record is appended as the first record on all monthly
submitted state input files sent to CMS.
Item Field Size Position Format Description
1 File Type
Identification,
“PROD” or
“TEST”
4 1-4 Alphabetic Indicates the intent of the
state buy-in file sent to
CMS, identifying the file
as either a test file,
“TEST,” or a production
file, “PROD.” This is a
MANDATORY field value
used by CMS during
header/trailer security
validation routines.
2 Filler 1 5 NA Position reserved for
future use.
3 File Creation
Date,
CCYYMMDD
8 6-13 Numeric This represents the date
on which the state
generated the file to be
sent to CMS. Enter an
eight-position numeric
date (e.g., enter
November 1, 2019 as
20191101).
4 Filler 59 14-72 NA Positions reserved for
future use.
5 Agency Code 3 73-75 Alpha-numeric
or
Numeric
Enter the three-position
alpha-numeric or numeric
code of the state which
has jurisdiction over the
account associated with
this file. This is a
MANDATORY field value
used by CMS during
header/trailer security
validation routines.
Item Field Size Position Format Description
6 Record
Identification
Code, “H”
1 76 Alphabetic “H” constant. The “H”
identifies this record as
the header record. This is
a MANDATORY field
value used by CMS during
header/trailer security
validation routines.
7 Filler 44 77-120 NA Positions reserved for
future use.
History
(Rev. 4, Issued: 08-21-20, Effective: 09-08-20, Implementation: 09-08-20)
Provenance
- Source
- cms.gov
- Retrieved
- 2026-08-25
- Edition
- iom-2026-08-25
- Content hash
6e7a71b2d2457f685e8f580f83399b2179acd088135258952728362d2f206906
The link goes to the issuing authority’s own document — the one we read to produce this record. Where a source publishes whole titles rather than sections, your browser may need a moment to jump to the provision.
Unofficial copy of government-published law, reproduced from official sources with full provenance. Not an official publication; verify against official sources before relying on it in a filing. Records in the 'guidance' corpus, and only that corpus, are sub-regulatory (interpretive guidelines, survey procedures) and are not binding law. Validity bounds follow each jurisdiction's declared temporalBasis.