The annual updated version of the National Correct Coding Initiative (NCCI) policy manual for Medicare services will be effective Jan. 1, 2012, rather than Oct. 1, 2011. This manual will be posted on the NCCI website on or around Dec. 1, 2011.
CMS posts changes to each of its NCCI and Medically Unlikely Edit (MUE) edit files on a quarterly basis. Download a test file of Version 18.0, effective Jan. 1, 2012, from the National Correct Coding Initiative Edits Quarterly NCCI and MEU Version Update Changes page on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) website. The final file will be available “on or about” Nov. 17, according to CMS Transmittal 2322.
Visit the National Correct Coding Initiative Edits Overview page on the CMS website for more information about NCCI.
October 28th, 2011
Beginning with the April 2010 update, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) now posts the National Correct Coding Initiative (NCCI) Edit files in Microsoft Excel 2007 and in text formats. Because Excel 2007 can support a larger number of rows, each code range is contained in one file as opposed to multiple files.
This should correct the incompatibility issues that some users experienced last quarter with the Excel 2003 files. Please be aware that Excel 2003 and earlier versions of the software have a maximum row count of 65,536. Some of the NCCI Edit files exceed the maximum row count. If you do not have Excel 2007, you should use the text format to import the data into an application that can support larger files.
More information on NCCI edits and download files are on the CMS website.
Source: NHIC, Corp. July 2010 J14 A/B MAC Resource
July 30th, 2010