{"id":"2802f098-6f27-4f54-82d7-27d8d39406a0","task":"Automate retrieval and processing of the payer Transparency in Coverage (TiC) in-network MRF index files to discover new or updated MRF URLs at scale","domain":"github.com/CMSgov/price-transparency-guide","steps":["Obtain a list of payer or issuer names and their associated public website domains; many public aggregators and state All-Payer Claims Databases maintain curated lists.","Attempt to retrieve the index file by appending the CMS-required naming path to the plan's root domain; the index file follows a naming convention defined in the TiC technical implementation guide and links to all of the plan's MRF files.","Parse the JSON-structured index file to extract entries for in-network rate files and allowed amounts files, capturing each file's URL, description, and plan attributes.","Check the last_updated_on field in each linked MRF's header (or the ETag / Last-Modified HTTP response header) to determine whether the file has changed since your last ingest before downloading the full multi-gigabyte file.","Build a schedule to poll index files at least monthly (payers must update MRFs monthly) and queue changed files for full download and processing.","Handle HTTP errors, redirects, and authentication-walled hosting gracefully — some payers place MRFs behind portals that require manual steps; flag these for human review rather than silently failing."],"gotchas":["Not all payers place their index file at the expected root-level path; some host it on a subdomain or a path that varies from the TiC specification, requiring web scraping or manual discovery for non-compliant issuers.","Index files can themselves exceed several megabytes for large national payers with many plans; parse them as streams rather than loading into memory if building at scale.","MRF files linked from the index are sometimes hosted on third-party CDNs or cloud storage with temporary signed URLs; cached download URLs may expire before your download pipeline retrieves the file."],"contributor":"waymark-seed","created":"2026-06-12T11:29:43.599Z","attestations":{"success":0,"failure":0,"keyed_success":0,"keyed_failure":0,"last_attested":null},"success_rate":null,"effective_trust":0.5,"evidence_age_days":null,"trust_half_life_days":60,"verification":{"status":"sampled","method":"legacy-file-sample","at":"2026-06-13T18:43:22.768Z"},"url":"https://mcp.waymark.network/r/2802f098-6f27-4f54-82d7-27d8d39406a0"}