News You Can Use: Learn About Medicare Changes on the Web
Access CMS manuals in seconds - but don't trash your paper books just yet
Provider-specific Medicare manuals are going the way of the dinosaur - and healthcare organizations that don't want to do the same had better take heed.
CMS is phasing out provider-specific, paper-based manuals in favor of eight new Internet-only manuals grouped into functional areas, the agency explained in a Sept. 12 transmittal. Instead of separate manuals for hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, etc., and for carriers and intermediaries, CMS will now have eight manuals that providers must look to for subject-specific information: Pub. 100-01 - Medicare General Information, Pub. 100-02 - Medicare Benefit Policy, Pub. 100-03 - Medicare National Coverage, Pub. 100-04 -Medicare Claims Processing, Pub. 100-05 - Medicare Secondary Payer, Pub. 100-06 - Medicare Financial Management, Pub. 100-08 - Medicare Program Integrity, and Pub. 100-09 -Medicare Contractor Beneficiary and Provider Communications.
But providers can't automatically switch to the new manuals, many of which are still under development. Instead, when CMS issues new information, it will update the Internet-only manuals and delete information from the paper-based manuals. So the transition may be painful, because for some instructions you'll need to check both sets of manuals. "It will be an annoyance to check both," says consultant Terri Ayer with Ayer Associates in Tucson, Ariz., because you're not just checking a paper and an online manual - you're checking a paper manual and eight online manuals.
In addition to the manual changes, CMS will adjust how it distributes program instructions. Now, it uses program memoranda to issue instructions to carriers and intermediaries. After Sept. 30, it will switch to using new "one-time notifications." It will also use manual revisions, "business requirements" and "confidential requirements" to communicate changes, CMS says in its release. Other Internet-only manuals will include Pub 100-10 - Medicare Quality Improvement Organization, Pub 100-07 - Medicare State Operations, and Pub. 100-16 - Medicare Managed Care.
The CMS manual notifications are at
http://cms.hhs.gov/manuals/pm_trans/R2OTN.pdf.
- Published on 2003-10-06
