CMS is soliciting feedback on the creation of the first national directory of healthcare providers and services (NDH), which would contain information on healthcare providers and services across the country. CMS states that the NDH would improve and support interoperability throughout the healthcare sector for payers and providers while making it easier for patients to identify, compare and locate providers who meet their specific needs and preferences, such as those related to office accessibility, languages spoken or other data. CMS proposes that consolidating provider data into a single source would ultimately reduce the unnecessary burden placed on providers to maintain dozens of separate directories while improving access to care. The new system would be used in place of commercial payor directories and allow payers to update their own directories seamlessly from a single directory. CMS is proposing integrating the NDH with current CMS-maintained systems (i.e., NPPES, PECOS and Care Compare).

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