Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

Medicare beneficiaries get more details on doctors.

More information on more physicians is now accessible to Medicare beneficiaries, thanks to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' recent expansion of its National Participating Physician Directory.

CMS July 8 said the directory now includes physicians' medical school, their year of graduation, information on their board certifications, their gender, the hospitals at which they have admitting privileges, their office phone number and any foreign languages they know. Previously, the database only included names, addresses and specialties, CMS says.

Heads up: The directory - which is updated monthly - will soon say whether a physician is accepting new Medicare patients.

To see the directory, go to http://63.241.27.97/Physician/Search/PhysicianSearch.asp.