The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) today issued the first edition of a new quarterly publication that will list the latest changes in Medicare and Medicaid regulations occurring in the previous quarter or scheduled for the next three months.

In the future, CMS will publish the Quarterly Provider Update: The One Source for National Medicare Provider Information, on the first business day of each quarter -- January, April, July and October.

In addition to the Provider Update, on Oct. 26, 2001, CMS began publishing, to the extent possible, its regulations in the Federal Register on the fourth Friday of each month. The regulations scheduled for publication this month will involve various providers, including hospitals, laboratories and physicians.

"We want to make it easier for providers to understand and comply with Medicare and Medicaid regulations and instructions, and we believe the Provider Update will prove to be a useful tool for informing providers about any rule changes," CMS Administrator Tom Scully said. "By communicating new or changing requirements on a regular and predictable schedule, we hope to enhance the delivery of Medicare services to our beneficiaries."

The Provider Update is available on the CMS Web site at http://qa.cms.hhs.gov/providerupdate.

Each Provider Update will identify a list of all regulations CMS published in the previous quarter, as well as the actual publication date in the Federal Register, the Federal Register reference, and a brief summary. It will also contain a list of all regulations CMS plans to publish in the following quarter. Detailed information on upcoming regulations will not be available until the rules are published in the Federal Register.

The Provider Update also will include all non-regulatory changes to Medicare and Medicaid that could affect providers, such as manual instructions and program memoranda. In most cases, CMS will implement the instructions 90 days after publication in the Provider Update.

Back