Add a Census

Associate a census of employees and their dependents with a group

Members and their dependents can be added to a group through the "Create Members" endpoint (API docs). When quoting, include all eligible employees in the census. Eligibility rules typically rely on this assumption. Ideon's group quoting API does not include any fields to designate employees as waiving coverage.

Configuring Requests

When quoting a group, premiums are determined by member data — including dependents, location, age, and tobacco status. Notes on important fields are included below.

• Member Location zip_code and fips_code - the home location of the member. This is not used for quoting in most scenarios, but is evaluated for certain eligibility rules based on the member's home or work location.

• Date of Birth date_of_birth and dependents[].date_of_birth - premiums and eligibility are determined using the age of a member and their dependents at the effective date of coverage.

• Last Used Tobacco last_used_tobacco and dependents[].last_used_tobacco - tobacco status is dependent on state and carrier, both in terms of the cutoff date to consider an individual a user as well as the potential impact on premiums. If an individual has never used tobacco, or the last use date is unknown, null can be passed.

• Cobra and Retiree cobra and retiree - if unknown, false can be passed.

• Location ID location_id - the internal identifier for the location the member works at, as returned in the "Create a Group" endpoint.

• Dependents

  • Relationship dependents[].relationship - valid dependent relationships are enumerated in the API docs. Certain plans and carriers allow different dependent types; ineligible dependents for a given plan will result in eligibility flags. The dependent relationship other can be used as a fall-back to bypass all eligibility rules.

  • Same Household dependents[].same_household - dependent relationships can be valid or invalid based on whether or not the dependent lives in the same household as the member.

A sample request with fields required for small group medical quoting, for reference:

PUT /groups/<group.id>/members

{
    "members": [
        {
            "zip_code": "10010",
            "fips_code": "36061",
            "date_of_birth": "1970-01-01",
            "gender": "F",
            "cobra": false,
            "last_used_tobacco": null,
            "retiree": false,
            "external_id": "003",
            "location_id": "<locations[].id>",
            "dependents": [
                {
                    "date_of_birth": "1970-01-01",
                    "gender": "M",
                    "last_used_tobacco": null,
                    "relationship": "spouse",
                    "same_household": true
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}

Additional Information

Adding or Replacing Members

The census endpoint supports both POST and PUT methods. For small group quoting applications, we typically recommend using PUT to fully replace census members. This helps maintain accurate syncing of censuses and limits overall API request volume.

Member and Dependent Identifiers

Separate id's are returned for all members and their dependents. These identifiers are surfaced in subsequent endpoints to refer to specific members or their dependents. See the Member and Dependent Rates and Plan Eligibility and Quote Errors sections for more information.