Medicare Coverage - General Information

Medicare provides coverage for items and services for over 55 million beneficiaries. The vast majority of coverage is provided on a local level and developed by clinicians at the contractors that pay Medicare claims. However, in certain cases, Medicare deems it appropriate to develop a National Coverage Determination (NCD) for an item or service to be applied on a national basis for all Medicare beneficiaries meeting the criteria for coverage. This page provides general information on various parts of that NCD process, resources of both a general and historical nature, and summaries and support documents concerning several miscellaneous NCDs.