What Is Form 1099-HC and How Do You Use It?

Form 1099-HC is the Massachusetts tax document your health insurance carrier sends each year to show which months you were covered and whether the plan met the state’s minimum standard.¹ You use the information on it to fill out Schedule HC, the health care form attached to your state income tax return. Massachusetts runs its own individual health insurance mandate with its own penalties, and the 1099-HC is how you prove you satisfied it.

What’s on the Form and When You Get It

Your insurance carrier issues the 1099-HC, not the state or any government agency.¹ The form names you as the policyholder, lists the months you were covered during the tax year, and indicates whether your plan met the state’s Minimum Creditable Coverage (MCC) standard.²

Insurers must send you the form by January 31 after the tax year ends. They also transmit the same information directly to the Massachusetts Department of Revenue, so the state already has a record of what your carrier reported before you file. Changed insurers midyear? You’ll get a 1099-HC from each one, and you need both to account for a full twelve months on your return.

Whether Your Plan Counts as Minimum Creditable Coverage

Massachusetts sets a floor for what a health plan has to cover. If your plan doesn’t clear it, the state treats you as uninsured for penalty purposes, no matter how much you paid in premiums. MCC requires coverage for doctor visits and preventive care (without a deductible), hospital and surgical services, emergency care, mental health and substance abuse treatment, prescription drugs, maternity and newborn care, and diagnostic services. Annual deductibles are capped at limits the Health Connector republishes each year, and plans cannot impose lifetime or annual benefit caps on an illness. Fixed-dollar-per-day hospital plans do not qualify.² Student Health Insurance Plans offered through Massachusetts universities automatically meet MCC.³

Your insurer decides whether the policy meets MCC and checks the appropriate box on your 1099-HC. If the box says the plan did not meet MCC, the state treats those months the same as months with no coverage at all.

Using the Form on Schedule HC

Schedule HC is where the 1099-HC data goes. You attach Schedule HC to your Massachusetts return whether you file Form 1 as a full-year resident or Form 1-NR/PY as a part-year resident.⁴

Look at your 1099-HC, identify the months you had MCC-compliant coverage, and fill in the matching ovals on Schedule HC. If you had qualifying coverage for all twelve months, you only complete the first page and move on.⁴ If you had any gap, you’ll work through the penalty section on the later pages.

Don’t report months you can’t document. The DOR compares what you enter against the data your insurer already filed with the state, and a mismatch can trigger a review or an automatic adjustment.

If You Didn’t Receive a 1099-HC

MassHealth members get a 1099-HC the same as anyone with private coverage. If yours didn’t arrive, the MassHealth Customer Service Center is at 1-800-841-2900. Medicare and TRICARE enrollees generally receive federal tax forms such as a 1095-B from those programs instead of a Massachusetts 1099-HC.⁵

Out-of-state and some employer-sponsored plans don’t issue a 1099-HC at all. In that case, contact your insurer or benefits department to ask whether the plan meets MCC. If they can’t tell you, the Schedule HC instructions include a checklist of MCC benefits so you can evaluate the plan yourself. When a plan meets every requirement, you can self-certify on line 3 of Schedule HC without a 1099-HC. For any month where qualifying coverage lasted 15 days or more, mark that month as covered; if coverage ran 14 days or fewer, leave it blank.⁴

Part-Year Residents

Moving into Massachusetts doesn’t put you under the mandate right away. It applies starting on the first day of the third full month after you became a resident.² Someone who moves to Boston on March 15 is subject to the mandate beginning June 1. The gap gives newcomers time to enroll in a qualifying plan.

If you moved out of state, the mandate applies through the last day of the last full month you were a resident. If you lived outside Massachusetts the entire year, the mandate doesn’t apply, even if you had Massachusetts-source income and filed a non-resident return.² Part-year residents file Schedule HC with Form 1-NR/PY and report only the months the mandate covered them.

The Penalty for Uncovered Months

Gaps in MCC coverage produce a penalty on your state income tax bill. The penalty scales with income and the number of months you were uncovered, and one built-in break matters: a gap of 63 consecutive days or fewer carries no penalty. The Health Connector treats 63 days as three calendar months, so a gap up to three months generally costs nothing.⁶

Penalties are set in tiers based on federal poverty level (FPL) percentages and family size. For tax year 2026, taxpayers at or below 150% FPL owe nothing. Above that, monthly penalties run from $26 (150.1–200% FPL) up to $211 (above 400% FPL), producing annual amounts between $312 and $2,532 depending on the tier. For married couples where both spouses lack coverage, penalties for each are added together. No individual’s penalty can exceed 50% of the cheapest monthly premium they could have bought through the Health Connector.⁶ The amount either increases what you owe or reduces your refund.

Exemptions and Appeals

Not every uncovered taxpayer owes the penalty. Massachusetts recognizes exemptions for sincere religious beliefs that conflict with medical insurance and for financial hardship serious enough that paying for coverage would leave you without food, shelter, or other basics.⁷ The Health Connector, not the DOR, decides these appeals.

The appeal starts on the return itself. On Schedule HC, fill in the appeal oval for yourself (and your spouse, if applicable), which lets the DOR share your tax information with the Health Connector. Calculate the penalty amount but leave the penalty lines on your income tax return blank.⁸ File all three pages of Schedule HC with your return; don’t attach hardship documents yet.

After the DOR processes the return, the Health Connector sends a follow-up letter asking you to state your grounds in writing and submit supporting documents. Miss the deadline in that letter and the appeal is automatically dismissed, with the full penalty due. The Health Connector may hold a hearing before ruling. There is no second appeal if the first one fails.⁸

1
Mass.gov. 1095-B and 1099-HC Tax Form
2
Mass.gov. Health Care Reform for Individuals
3
Massachusetts Health Connector. Minimum Creditable Coverage
4
Mass.gov. 2025 Massachusetts Schedule Health Care Instructions
5
Massachusetts Health Connector. Get Your Health Coverage Tax Forms Together
6
Mass.gov. TIR 26-1 Individual Mandate Penalties for Tax Year 2026
7
Mass.gov. 830 CMR 111M.2.1 – Health Insurance Individual Mandate Personal Income Tax Return Requirements
8
Mass.gov. Learn How to Appeal the Health Care Penalty