The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is reaching out to the public and asking them to provide input on the best possible ways to make provider-level Medicare data available, the agencies announced in a recent email.

CMS has issued a request for information (RFI) seeking comments from parties on their perspectives on how provider-level charge data should be presented. The email comes as the agency is in the process of releasing outpatient data for the first time, thanks to the change of a long-standing prohibition that prohibited them from providing requesters access to physician-level Medicare payment data.

"We know from recent experiences with the release of hospital charge data on the top 20 diagnostic codes that there are many users with ideas to apply these data to create new tools, and services to improve performance. Provider-level cost data will unleash another round of innovation," Bryan Sivak, chief technology officer of HHS, said in the email.

The deadline for this RFI is Sept. 5.