| Today, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is releasing a revised CMS-179 form and updated instructions. While changes to the form itself are mostly cosmetic and to recognize the recent CMS reorganization, more detailed and specific instructions for the Form CMS-179 are provided. The changes include clarification that: The first two digits in SPA numbering should align with the calendar year of the date of SPA submission to CMS; The FFP impact should be entered in actual whole dollars (no places right of the decimal), not rounded to nearest thousands or displayed in thousands, not truncated; the FFP estimate should be based on the action of the proposed plan language and include amounts not currently considered in the states approved plan of assistance (whether increasing or decreasing); Page enumeration in box 7 should include the pages revised with the submission; page enumeration in box 8 should include pages being replaced; New pages appear in 7 but not 8, deleted pages appear in 8 but not 7. These changes will provide CMS with more data consistency in states submission of the Form CMS-179 and assist states to provide the most accurate data. States should begin using the revised CMS-179 effective with state plan amendments submitted on or after December 1, 2021. https://medicaid.gov/state-resource-center/downloads/spa-and-1915-waiver-processing/cms-179-form-updated-instructions.pdf |
