The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), previously known as the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), is a federal agency within the United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) that administers the Medicare program and works in partnership with state governments to administer Medicaid, the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), and health insurance portability standards. In addition to these programs, CMS has other responsibilities, including the administrative simplification standards from the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), quality standards in long-term care facilities (nursing homes) through its survey and certification process, clinical laboratory quality standards under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments, and oversight of HealthCare.gov.
The most popular CMS publication sold by the U.S. Government Bookstore is the CMS-1500 form, the official standard Medicare and Medicaid health insurance claim form. It was developed by the independent National Uniform Claim Committee (NUCC) and used by all non-institutional medical provider or supplier to bill Medicare carriers and durable medical equipment regional carriers (DMERCs) when a provider qualifies for a waiver from the Administrative Simplification Compliance Act (ASCA) requirement for electronic submission of claims. It is also used for billing of some Medicaid State Agencies (contact your Medicaid State Agency for more details).
Claims must be submitted on original, not photocopied, print versions of the CMS-1500 forms as they are printed in special OCR-scannable red ink. Original, blank forms are available from GPO in several convenient laser-printed compatible quantities and formats, such as single sheet, 1-part, 2-part, and 2-part snapout versions.
For more information about the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, visit the CMS website at http://www.cms.gov.