State Verification Exchange System (SVES)

The 2009 Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (CHIPRA) amended the Social Security Act to provide an optional process for verifying the citizenship/ID or nationality of Medicaid or CHIP applicants declaring to be U.S. citizens or nationals using the State Verification Exchange System (SVES). A State may submit to the Social Security Administration (SSA) an applicant’s name, Social Security Number (SSN), and date of birth (DOB) for comparison with information that SSA has in its Master File of SSN Holders (“Numident”). A response from SSA that confirms the data submitted by the State is consistent with SSA data, including citizenship or nationality, meets the citizenship/ID verification requirements. No further action is required for the State or individual and no additional verification of either citizenship or identity is required.

A SVES match is submitted in nightly batch for all newly active or pending A/Rs. SSA will return a results file in 48 to 72 hours. Gateway will automatically update valid values for citizenship, identity and original for A/Rs for whom SSA returns a citizenship match. If the SVES match does not return a citizen match, the existing valid values will not be overwritten.

The following valid values will be entered automatically upon verification of citizenship via SVES:

Citizenship field - “U.S. Citizen/National” for citizenship; Verification – “Electronically verified by SVES” for “verified SSA interface”

Since SVES is tied to federally verified SSNs, if the SSN is changed a new SVES match will take place. Individuals for whom SVES does not return a match will be submitted for the match again if their demographic information (e.g., name, DOB or SSN) is updated in GA Gateway.

SVES verification constitutes the highest level of citizenship/ID verification.