Medicaid is the single largest source of health care coverage in the US, but health policy research on the Medicaid program has historically lagged research on Medicare, due to limited availability of high-quality administrative claims data across states. In 2019, the US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released the T-MSIS Analytic Files (TAF), a new-generation federal Medicaid claims dataset that has catalyzed policy-relevant research on the Medicaid program. TAF data are highly complex, however, with meaningful differences in quality across states, years, and data elements. There is an urgent need for standardized reporting guidelines to ensure TAF-based research is high quality and reproducible.
In this JAMA Health Forum manuscript, members of the Medicaid Data Learning Network (MDLN) describe the development of the TAF Analysis Reporting Checklist - a new tool for researchers and journal reviewers, alike, that includes four categories of items recommended for reporting in studies using the TAF data. While not intended to replace existing checklists, such as the RECORD or STROBE reporting guidelines, the TAF Checklist can be used to promote transparency and reproducibility in research using TAF data and safeguard the quality of research used to inform Medicaid policy.