============================================================================= Run Date: APR 26, 2016 Designation: EAS*1*138 Package : EAS - ENROLLMENT APPLICATION SYSTEM Priority: Mandatory Version : 1 SEQ #110 Status: Released Compliance Date: MAY 27, 2016 ============================================================================= Subject: ENROLLMENT SYSTEM (ES) 4.3 RELEASE Category: - Informational Description: ============ The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is obligated to support the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Effective January 1, 2014, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires every individual taxpayer in the United States to maintain minimum essential healthcare coverage or face a tax penalty. Enrollment in Veterans health care meets the Minimum Essential Coverage (MEC) threshold under 26 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 1.36B-2 (c)(2)(ii) of the Treasury Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM). The VA is required to provide the IRS with a list or file containing information on every Veteran and beneficiary that obtained MEC through the VA for a tax year. The information provided to the IRS includes: name, address, DOB, insurer information (VA information, Part III of the 1095B), and either a full year or number of months the VA provided MEC. Section 6055(a) requires every entity that provides MEC, to file annual returns reporting information for each individual for whom coverage is provided. The Veterans Letter, 1095B form, or equivalent communication, must be prepared annually for the prior tax year and filed with the IRS. The purpose of this Informational patch is to announce the release of the Enrollment System (ES) 4.3 software which specifically focuses on accomplishing the requirements of the ACA project. ES 4.3 permits the following functionality: - Identification of Veterans for whom to issue an annual Minimum Essential Coverage (MEC) letter and IRS Form 1095B. (Claims Processing and Eligibility (CPE) identifies the beneficiaries.) - Determination of the MEC during the previous calendar year for an individual and populate the IRS Form 1095B. - Establishes a secure interface between the Veterans Administration (VA) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to share MEC information, e.g. IRS Form 1095B. - Allows for ES to receive and store an acknowledgement from the IRS for receipt of IRS Form 1095B. - Allows designated ES users to view, correct, and retransmit MEC information to the IRS on behalf of the Veterans. - Allows designated ES users to complete a corrected IRS Form 1095B for Veterans and/or beneficiaries, to issue an annual MEC Letter, IRS Form 1095B, and MEC Report, to share with IRS. (Currently Claims Processing and Eligibility (CPE) must correct IRS Form 1095B for the beneficiaries.) Enhancements: ============= ACA Increment 4 adds the following capabilities: - Deliver the required ACA correspondence and IRS reporting capabilities through an extension of VA enterprise capabilities for Veterans and beneficiaries - Provide the capability to generate and send a file or list of Veterans and beneficiaries and their months of VA health benefits MEC coverage for a tax year to the IRS - Provide the capability to correct an IRS 1095B form for Veterans and beneficiaries and re-submit to the IRS What to Expect: =============== During the ES 4.3 implementation, which is expected to take less than eight hours, HL7 messaging to and from the ES will be disabled by the Vitria Interface Engine (VIE) team. After the ES implementation, there will be no change in VistA. Implementation: =============== The implementation of ES 4.3 requires deployment of Java software to dedicated servers at the Austin Information Technology Center (AITC). The AITC staff will perform the installation with support from the development team. Support from the sites is not required. The ES application will be unavailable and Veteran enrollment determinations will be delayed until the deployment is complete. Person Service Identity Management/Master Veteran Index (PSIM/MVI) and messaging to/from the sites will be unavailable during the deployment. An Automated Notification Reporting (ANR) will be created to announce the deployment which will list all impacted systems and to track the outage. Implementation Date: ==================== 04/23/2016 Implementation Files: ===================== N/A Documentation Retrieval: ======================== The user documentation is available on the Office of Information Field Office (OIFO) ANONYMOUS.SOFTWARE directories listed below: OIFO Address Directory Albany domain.ext Hines domain.ext Salt Lake City domain.ext The user documentation files listed below may be obtained via Secure Shell File Transfer Protocol (SFTP). Sites may also select to retrieve documentation from a specific server as shown in the above table. The following files should be downloaded in the binary file transfer method. Filename Description -------- ----------- ES_4_3_Developers_Guide Developer's Guide ES_4_3_Installation_Guide Installation Guide ES_4_3_Release_Notes Release Notes ES_4_3_Production_Operations_Manual Production Operations Manual ES_4_3_User_Guide User Guide Mandate: ======== N/A Defect Tracking System Ticket(s) & Overview: ========================== N/A Associated NSR(s): ================== N/A Reporting Problems: =================== N/A Routine Information: ==================== No routines included. Routine Information: ==================== No routines included. ============================================================================= User Information: Hold Date : APR 10, 2016 Entered By : Date Entered : MAR 03, 2016 Completed By: Date Completed: APR 08, 2016 Released By : Date Released : APR 26, 2016 ============================================================================= Packman Mail Message: ===================== No routines included