I spend a fair amount of time providing appropriately resourced answers to our clients who use our physician and facility billing consulting services.  The most frequently used bookmark in my web-browser is the Medicare Coverage Database (MCD) located at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/mcd.  The MCD is fully searchable and it contains all Medicare National Coverage Determinations (NCDs), National Coverage Analyses (NCAs), Local Coverage Determinations (LCDs), and local policy articles.  I have found that navigating the MCD is still a little challenging for some clients, so I was very pleased to see CMS publish a “how to” booklet via the Medicare Learning Network (MLN) which as an aside happens to be another excellent learning tool.  The new “How To” booklet is a free, downloadable, 2.5 MB PDF, that provides an explanation of the MCD, as well as how to use the Search, Indexes, Reports and Downloads features.

You can ‘currently’ find the booklet at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/MLNProducts/downloads/MedicareCvrgeDatabase.pdf.  In the event that CMS makes changes to their website structure, again, you can find this and similar tools by visiting the MLN Publications page at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/MLNProducts/MPUB/list.asp. Once there use the search key words “how to” to locate this publication quickly.