Introduction
Use this report to view all Articles or just the Articles for one or more contractor numbers within one or more states. Articles include billing, coding and other guidelines created by a Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC) that are related to a Local Coverage Determination (LCD). You can Hide or Show the Report Information panel by clicking on the "Report Information" label at the top of that section.
Learn more about the various document types found in the MCD
Note that Article document IDs begin with the letter "A" (e.g., A12345).
Getting to know the Report
This report contains a list of Articles. By default, all Articles are included but you can limit the list to one or more contractor numbers within one or more states.
The columns in this report include:
- ID: The ID of the Article.
- Title: The title of the Article.
- Contractor: The Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC) responsible for the Article.
- Effective Date: If it is a new Article then this is the effective date of the original version of the Article. If it is an existing Article then this is the effective date of the revised version.
- Last Updated: If it is a new Article then this is the date the Article was created. If it is an existing Article then this is the date the Article was updated.
- Status: The status of the Article -- Active, Retired or Future Effective.
Filtering Your Report
You can filter your report by using the two criteria in the upper left. Changing the filters will immediately update your report.
State
Choose from a list of states. Selecting one or more states will limit your report to only the Articles relevant for the selected state(s). After selecting one or more states, you have the option to further limit the report to one or more contractor numbers. By default, all states are included in the report.
Partial State Selections
Both California and New York support partial state selections. The state selections for California include "California - Entire State", "California - Northern" and "California - Southern" and New York include "New York - Entire State", "New York - Downstate", "New York - Queens", "New York - Upstate".
When searching documents for California and New York, your results may include documents that are not relevant for your location. For example, if your location of service was in Southern California, your results may include documents that are associated only with "California - Northern", which may not be relevant. When viewing Articles and LCDs for California and New York, please review the geographic information for that document and confirm that the document is relevant for your location of service.
CMS Regions
Within the state dropdown list, you can also select to narrow your search by CMS Region. The CMS Regions are broken out by state as follows:
- CMS Region 1: CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, VT
- CMS Region 2: NJ, NY, Puerto Rico (PR), Virgin Islands (VI)
- CMS Region 3: DC, DE, MD, PA, VA, WV
- CMS Region 4: AL, FL, GA, KY, MS, NC, SC, TN
- CMS Region 5: IL, IN, MI, MN, OH, WI
- CMS Region 6: AR, LA, NM, OK, TX
- CMS Region 7: IA, KS, MO, NE
- CMS Region 8: CO, MT, ND, SD, UT, WY
- CMS Region 9: AZ, CA, HI, NV, American Samoa (AS), Guam (GU), Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI)
- CMS Region 10: AK, ID, OR, WA
Status
Choose from a list of Article statuses -- Active, Retired or Future Effective. By default, all statuses are included in the report. Please note the MCD only includes retired documents for less than one year. For documents retired beyond one year, visit the MCD Archive.
Sorting Your Report
You can sort your report by using the Sort By feature in the upper right. Changing the sort will immediately update your report.
Opening Documents
You can open a document by selecting the link in the ID column.
Adding Documents to the Basket
You can add documents to the basket by selecting the basket icon associated with the document of interest. Adding documents to the basket will allow you to reference the documents at a later time. Selecting the basket icon in the table's header row will add all the documents in the table to the basket. However, this feature is disabled if there are more than 50 documents in the table.
To see the items in your basket, select the basket icon in the navbar.
Creating a document PDF
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Click on the Download button in the top right corner of the document (i.e., to the right of the document title).
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In the resulting Print Dialog, set Printer/Destination to “Save as PDF” or “Save to PDF” (for Safari users, Click the PDF button).
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Click on the Save button and select a location for the new PDF file.
Note: Some coloring on the document may not appear on the PDF, initially. To enable coloring for banners and buttons in the PDF:
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Click on More Settings in the Print Dialog to display additional options.
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Select the checkbox next to Background Graphics or Print Backgrounds.
Pro Tip: If you Search using a keyword (e.g., cardiac), the resulting documents will display with the keyword highlighted (e.g., cardiac). If you then click the Download button to create a PDF, the keywords will remain highlighted. To remove the highlighting, search again for the document using the Document ID (e.g., A59657) and then create the PDF (without the highlighted keywords).
Additional Features
On the right side of the report, in the Report Information section, you will find details about the report you are viewing:
- Report Run Date: The date you ran the report
- Selected Criteria: The filter options you chose when generating the report
At the bottom of the report, you will find additional helpful features:
- Submit Feedback/Ask a Question: Use this feature to contact CMS
- Download to Excel: Use this feature to download all of the report data to an Excel file
