January 2026 annual eligibility refreshes: 4x the volume
Feb 4, 2026
Guide
Big takeaway: Due to annual eligibility refreshes, Stedi’s eligibility check volume increased by 4x in the first two weeks of January 2026, compared to our 2025 baseline. New retry functionality cut some payer-related failures by half.
Early January is one of the busiest times of year for eligibility checks. Due to payer outages, it also produces some of the year’s highest check failure rates.
Many patients change health plans on January 1. That means coverage that was valid in late December can be inactive a week later.
To get ahead of billing issues, many providers run eligibility checks to reverify insurance for all or part of their patients at the start of the year. It’s called an annual eligibility refresh.
But when everyone runs checks at once, payer systems struggle to keep up. Payer outages are common in the first two weeks of the year.
Stedi rolled out several changes to prepare for higher eligibility check volume and payer outages in January 2026. This post is our scorecard. It covers what we did and how things played out.
How we prepared
This is what we did to prepare for 2026 annual refreshes at a high level:
New features
Longer batch retry windows – We rolled out a new feature that let Stedi customers automatically retry batch eligibility checks that fail due to payer connectivity for up to 24 hours, helping them ride out intermittent payer outages.
Higher batch eligibility limits – We increased batch check limits to 10,000 checks per batch. Stedi customers can submit larger batches without breaking up requests.
More resilient payer connections – We added new direct connections and improved automatic rerouting.
Customer guidance
Tips for annual eligibility refreshes – We published a blog on how to run annual refreshes and what to expect.
Free strategy consultations – We offered free consultations and met with Stedi customers to plan their refresh strategy.
Operations
Active monitoring – Our Network Operations team actively tracks payer latency, error rates, and stale data signals.
Real-time support – Our Support team maintained regular support hours through the holidays, with product engineers on call.
How early January 2026 went
Here’s a by-the-numbers rundown of how things unfolded at the start of the year.
A 4x increase in eligibility check volume
In the first two weeks of January 2026, Stedi’s eligibility check volume increased to roughly 4x our 2025 baseline.
Some of that spike came from Stedi’s growth – more companies are using us for eligibility checks. But at least half of that increase came from a change in provider behavior.
When normalized by NPI, providers ran roughly 2x-2.5x more checks per day than on an average day in 2025:
Week one: 250% increase in per-day volume
Week two: 200% increase in per-day volume
Stedi’s infrastructure handled the increase without issue. We saw higher AAA errors from payers, but there were no errors or performance degradation in Stedi’s platform.
Payer connectivity errors
AAA errors tell you why an eligibility check failed. AAA error 42 (Unable to Respond at Current Time) means the payer’s system was unavailable. It typically indicates a temporary payer outage.
During 2025, roughly 7% of eligibility checks failed due to a AAA 42 error. In January 2026, that failure rate increased:
Week one: 11% of checks failed with a AAA error
42Week two: 17% of checks failed with a AAA error
42
Lower failure rates for batch checks
An increase in AAA 42 errors was expected. It’s something we told customers to expect at the start of the year. What surprised us was how effective longer retry windows were for batch eligibility checks.
Batch eligibility checks let you run multiple eligibility checks asynchronously in a single request. One of the advantages of batch checks is that they automatically retry checks that return AAA 42 or other errors related to payer connectivity.
January 2026 was the first annual refresh period where it was possible to extend the retry window for batch checks to up to 24 hours. During that period, batch checks saw roughly half the failure rate of real-time checks.
Automatic retries with longer windows meant most AAA 42 errors were resolved on their own. The payer came back online and a retry returned a successful response – without Stedi’s batch check customers needing to do anything.
Lesson: Eligibility retries make a difference
Most AAA 42 errors – and the payer outages that cause them – are temporary. They’re typically resolved within 30 minutes, during annual refreshes and the rest of the year.
If you get an AAA 42 error, the most effective first line of defense is to keep retrying the check. Stedi doesn't charge for checks that return AAA 42 errors - so retrying costs nothing.
If you’re using batch eligibility checks, Stedi handles retries for AAA 42 errors for you. You just need to set your retry window. For tips, see our Retry strategy docs.
Run eligibility checks with Stedi
No clearinghouse can prevent payer outages. We built Stedi to stay reliable – and consistent – even when payer systems aren’t.
If you’re new to Stedi, you can try eligibility checks on our free Basic plan. It includes 100 checks per month and access to mock requests and responses.
Signup takes less than two minutes. No credit card required.
Big takeaway: Due to annual eligibility refreshes, Stedi’s eligibility check volume increased by 4x in the first two weeks of January 2026, compared to our 2025 baseline. New retry functionality cut some payer-related failures by half.
Early January is one of the busiest times of year for eligibility checks. Due to payer outages, it also produces some of the year’s highest check failure rates.
Many patients change health plans on January 1. That means coverage that was valid in late December can be inactive a week later.
To get ahead of billing issues, many providers run eligibility checks to reverify insurance for all or part of their patients at the start of the year. It’s called an annual eligibility refresh.
But when everyone runs checks at once, payer systems struggle to keep up. Payer outages are common in the first two weeks of the year.
Stedi rolled out several changes to prepare for higher eligibility check volume and payer outages in January 2026. This post is our scorecard. It covers what we did and how things played out.
How we prepared
This is what we did to prepare for 2026 annual refreshes at a high level:
New features
Longer batch retry windows – We rolled out a new feature that let Stedi customers automatically retry batch eligibility checks that fail due to payer connectivity for up to 24 hours, helping them ride out intermittent payer outages.
Higher batch eligibility limits – We increased batch check limits to 10,000 checks per batch. Stedi customers can submit larger batches without breaking up requests.
More resilient payer connections – We added new direct connections and improved automatic rerouting.
Customer guidance
Tips for annual eligibility refreshes – We published a blog on how to run annual refreshes and what to expect.
Free strategy consultations – We offered free consultations and met with Stedi customers to plan their refresh strategy.
Operations
Active monitoring – Our Network Operations team actively tracks payer latency, error rates, and stale data signals.
Real-time support – Our Support team maintained regular support hours through the holidays, with product engineers on call.
How early January 2026 went
Here’s a by-the-numbers rundown of how things unfolded at the start of the year.
A 4x increase in eligibility check volume
In the first two weeks of January 2026, Stedi’s eligibility check volume increased to roughly 4x our 2025 baseline.
Some of that spike came from Stedi’s growth – more companies are using us for eligibility checks. But at least half of that increase came from a change in provider behavior.
When normalized by NPI, providers ran roughly 2x-2.5x more checks per day than on an average day in 2025:
Week one: 250% increase in per-day volume
Week two: 200% increase in per-day volume
Stedi’s infrastructure handled the increase without issue. We saw higher AAA errors from payers, but there were no errors or performance degradation in Stedi’s platform.
Payer connectivity errors
AAA errors tell you why an eligibility check failed. AAA error 42 (Unable to Respond at Current Time) means the payer’s system was unavailable. It typically indicates a temporary payer outage.
During 2025, roughly 7% of eligibility checks failed due to a AAA 42 error. In January 2026, that failure rate increased:
Week one: 11% of checks failed with a AAA error
42Week two: 17% of checks failed with a AAA error
42
Lower failure rates for batch checks
An increase in AAA 42 errors was expected. It’s something we told customers to expect at the start of the year. What surprised us was how effective longer retry windows were for batch eligibility checks.
Batch eligibility checks let you run multiple eligibility checks asynchronously in a single request. One of the advantages of batch checks is that they automatically retry checks that return AAA 42 or other errors related to payer connectivity.
January 2026 was the first annual refresh period where it was possible to extend the retry window for batch checks to up to 24 hours. During that period, batch checks saw roughly half the failure rate of real-time checks.
Automatic retries with longer windows meant most AAA 42 errors were resolved on their own. The payer came back online and a retry returned a successful response – without Stedi’s batch check customers needing to do anything.
Lesson: Eligibility retries make a difference
Most AAA 42 errors – and the payer outages that cause them – are temporary. They’re typically resolved within 30 minutes, during annual refreshes and the rest of the year.
If you get an AAA 42 error, the most effective first line of defense is to keep retrying the check. Stedi doesn't charge for checks that return AAA 42 errors - so retrying costs nothing.
If you’re using batch eligibility checks, Stedi handles retries for AAA 42 errors for you. You just need to set your retry window. For tips, see our Retry strategy docs.
Run eligibility checks with Stedi
No clearinghouse can prevent payer outages. We built Stedi to stay reliable – and consistent – even when payer systems aren’t.
If you’re new to Stedi, you can try eligibility checks on our free Basic plan. It includes 100 checks per month and access to mock requests and responses.
Signup takes less than two minutes. No credit card required.
Big takeaway: Due to annual eligibility refreshes, Stedi’s eligibility check volume increased by 4x in the first two weeks of January 2026, compared to our 2025 baseline. New retry functionality cut some payer-related failures by half.
Early January is one of the busiest times of year for eligibility checks. Due to payer outages, it also produces some of the year’s highest check failure rates.
Many patients change health plans on January 1. That means coverage that was valid in late December can be inactive a week later.
To get ahead of billing issues, many providers run eligibility checks to reverify insurance for all or part of their patients at the start of the year. It’s called an annual eligibility refresh.
But when everyone runs checks at once, payer systems struggle to keep up. Payer outages are common in the first two weeks of the year.
Stedi rolled out several changes to prepare for higher eligibility check volume and payer outages in January 2026. This post is our scorecard. It covers what we did and how things played out.
How we prepared
This is what we did to prepare for 2026 annual refreshes at a high level:
New features
Longer batch retry windows – We rolled out a new feature that let Stedi customers automatically retry batch eligibility checks that fail due to payer connectivity for up to 24 hours, helping them ride out intermittent payer outages.
Higher batch eligibility limits – We increased batch check limits to 10,000 checks per batch. Stedi customers can submit larger batches without breaking up requests.
More resilient payer connections – We added new direct connections and improved automatic rerouting.
Customer guidance
Tips for annual eligibility refreshes – We published a blog on how to run annual refreshes and what to expect.
Free strategy consultations – We offered free consultations and met with Stedi customers to plan their refresh strategy.
Operations
Active monitoring – Our Network Operations team actively tracks payer latency, error rates, and stale data signals.
Real-time support – Our Support team maintained regular support hours through the holidays, with product engineers on call.
How early January 2026 went
Here’s a by-the-numbers rundown of how things unfolded at the start of the year.
A 4x increase in eligibility check volume
In the first two weeks of January 2026, Stedi’s eligibility check volume increased to roughly 4x our 2025 baseline.
Some of that spike came from Stedi’s growth – more companies are using us for eligibility checks. But at least half of that increase came from a change in provider behavior.
When normalized by NPI, providers ran roughly 2x-2.5x more checks per day than on an average day in 2025:
Week one: 250% increase in per-day volume
Week two: 200% increase in per-day volume
Stedi’s infrastructure handled the increase without issue. We saw higher AAA errors from payers, but there were no errors or performance degradation in Stedi’s platform.
Payer connectivity errors
AAA errors tell you why an eligibility check failed. AAA error 42 (Unable to Respond at Current Time) means the payer’s system was unavailable. It typically indicates a temporary payer outage.
During 2025, roughly 7% of eligibility checks failed due to a AAA 42 error. In January 2026, that failure rate increased:
Week one: 11% of checks failed with a AAA error
42Week two: 17% of checks failed with a AAA error
42
Lower failure rates for batch checks
An increase in AAA 42 errors was expected. It’s something we told customers to expect at the start of the year. What surprised us was how effective longer retry windows were for batch eligibility checks.
Batch eligibility checks let you run multiple eligibility checks asynchronously in a single request. One of the advantages of batch checks is that they automatically retry checks that return AAA 42 or other errors related to payer connectivity.
January 2026 was the first annual refresh period where it was possible to extend the retry window for batch checks to up to 24 hours. During that period, batch checks saw roughly half the failure rate of real-time checks.
Automatic retries with longer windows meant most AAA 42 errors were resolved on their own. The payer came back online and a retry returned a successful response – without Stedi’s batch check customers needing to do anything.
Lesson: Eligibility retries make a difference
Most AAA 42 errors – and the payer outages that cause them – are temporary. They’re typically resolved within 30 minutes, during annual refreshes and the rest of the year.
If you get an AAA 42 error, the most effective first line of defense is to keep retrying the check. Stedi doesn't charge for checks that return AAA 42 errors - so retrying costs nothing.
If you’re using batch eligibility checks, Stedi handles retries for AAA 42 errors for you. You just need to set your retry window. For tips, see our Retry strategy docs.
Run eligibility checks with Stedi
No clearinghouse can prevent payer outages. We built Stedi to stay reliable – and consistent – even when payer systems aren’t.
If you’re new to Stedi, you can try eligibility checks on our free Basic plan. It includes 100 checks per month and access to mock requests and responses.
Signup takes less than two minutes. No credit card required.
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Stedi is a registered trademark of Stedi, Inc. All names, logos, and brands of third parties listed on our site are trademarks of their respective owners (including “X12”, which is a trademark of X12 Incorporated). Stedi, Inc. and its products and services are not endorsed by, sponsored by, or affiliated with these third parties. Our use of these names, logos, and brands is for identification purposes only, and does not imply any such endorsement, sponsorship, or affiliation.
Developers
Resources
Get updates on what’s new at Stedi
Backed by
Stedi is a registered trademark of Stedi, Inc. All names, logos, and brands of third parties listed on our site are trademarks of their respective owners (including “X12”, which is a trademark of X12 Incorporated). Stedi, Inc. and its products and services are not endorsed by, sponsored by, or affiliated with these third parties. Our use of these names, logos, and brands is for identification purposes only, and does not imply any such endorsement, sponsorship, or affiliation.
Developers
Resources
Get updates on what’s new at Stedi
Backed by
Stedi is a registered trademark of Stedi, Inc. All names, logos, and brands of third parties listed on our site are trademarks of their respective owners (including “X12”, which is a trademark of X12 Incorporated). Stedi, Inc. and its products and services are not endorsed by, sponsored by, or affiliated with these third parties. Our use of these names, logos, and brands is for identification purposes only, and does not imply any such endorsement, sponsorship, or affiliation.