CMS Online Information Just Got Better

By Julie Green Bataille, Director, Office of Communications

We’re always looking for ways to make your experience with the Medicare, Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance, and other health care programs better. Today, we’re expanding and enhancing our online presence at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS): we’re debuting a new look and feel for CMS.gov, and launching a brand-new site for the Medicaid program, Medicaid.gov.

These changes reflect what we’ve heard from you – our users – and respond to what you’ve said you want to be able to do on our site.  Here’s what you’ll find on the new CMS and Medicaid sites:

• A significantly improved search engine that gets you to the information you’re looking for, fast.
• More in-depth information about what we’re doing to implement the Affordable Care Act and other new initiatives, and details about how you can apply for new programs.
• Up-to-date, real-time updates that reflect important developments and initiatives happening with CMS programs.
• Medicaid program information that’s readily available, easy to find, and easy to use— and we’ll be continually looking for ways to enhance your experience on this site.
• Easy-to-access links to Healthcare.gov, which will continue to be the primary site for consumer information.

While we’ve moved content around to make it easier to find, don’t worry that you’ll lose access to any of the current Medicare and Medicaid information you rely on now. We’re launching an archive version of each of our websites too, so that historic information can remain online without adding clutter to our primary sites.

We think these changes are a good first step to improving our online presence and making information more accessible for all the patients, partners, providers, States, advocates and others who interact with our programs. However, this is just the first step — we have plans for continuous, ongoing improvements.

Take a look around at our www.cms.gov and www.Medicaid.gov, and let us know what you think. We’d like to use your feedback to help drive the direction of future website improvements.