On this screen, you can perform a detailed search against five different types of documents:

• National Coverage Determinations (NCD),
• National Coverage Analyses (NCA),
• Coding Analyses for Labs (CAL),
• Medicare Evidence Development & Coverage Advisory Committee (MedCAC) Meetings,
• Technology Assessments (TA),
• Articles, and
• Local Coverage Determinations (LCD)

These are grouped under two main categories: National (NCD, NCA, CAL, MedCAC, and TA) and Local (Articles and LCD). First decide what type of search you would like to perform. If you have the ID of the document that you want to retrieve, then use the ID Search that appears in the blue bar underneath the tabs. Otherwise, perform a detailed search as described below.

When performing an ID Search, the entire ID must be specified, including any letters or dashes. The following are examples of IDs for each type of document:

• NCD: 99.1
• NCA/CAL: CAG-00999R
• Article: A99999
• LCD (final): L99999
• LCD (draft): DL99999

Step 1

Begin by selecting which documents you would like to search on. The search criteria that appear in Step 2 and 3 below will vary depending on which document type(s) are selected.

If you elect to search on Articles, you have the additional option of searching on All Articles, Key Articles Only or SAD Exclusion Articles Only.

If you elect to search on LCDs, you have the additional option of searching on Final Policies Only, Draft Policies Only or Both Final and Draft. Draft Policies are works in progress that are available on the Medicare Coverage Database site for public comment. Draft Policies are not necessarily a reflection of the current policies or practices of the contractor.

Note that by default the search only returns documents that are currently in effect. To search documents that were in effect for a specific date or time period, specify date criteria as explained in Step 3 below.

Step 2

Now enter your search criteria. In this step, you are required to enter search criteria into each of the gray boxes. For some criteria, only a checkbox and label are visible. If you click on the checkbox, the display expands to include the criteria that must be specified. Note that when multiple criteria are entered, only records meeting ALL criteria are returned.

For National Coverage only searches, this step is optional. No criteria selections are required.

For searches including Local Coverage documents, this step is required. If specific search criteria are unknown or undesired, users may enter an "a" as the keyword, and choose "Entire Document Search". This in essence allows the user to bypass the required criteria to complete the search.

When specifying dates for the date criteria fields, leading zeros are required. For example, when specifying the date January 1, 2001, the date must be entered as "01/01/2001" instead of "1/1/2001".

Step 3

Now enter any additional search criteria if desired. For some criteria, only a checkbox and label are visible. If you click on the checkbox, the display expands to include the criteria that must be specified. Note that when multiple criteria are entered, only records meeting ALL criteria are returned.

When specifying dates for the date criteria fields, leading zeros are required. For example, when specifying the date January 1, 2001, the date must be entered as "01/01/2001" instead of "1/1/2001".

This step is only applicable for combined searches.

For more detailed information regarding search criteria, view Additional Help for Search Page.

Page Last Modified: 5/30/2008 4:11:34 PM

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