With millions of people in the United States utilizing CMS services, mostly through Medicare and/or Medicaid, it is vital that CMS and healthcare providers are synchronized as much as possible. With better recordkeeping and reporting through the transition over the last 15 years to electronic Health Records (EHR), both CMS and providers have been able to operate in a more streamlined system. Reports are easier to read, transfer, and share, which has led to less overhead for both, after initial costs of transitioning.
Through CMS, patients have access to millions of providers throughout the country, allowing for access to a selection of choices in most areas — rural and less densely populated areas will almost always have fewer choices simply due to their lower population density in general. Rural hospital availability is an ongoing national problem where the current definition for rural is a county with under 60,000 residents. People in less populated areas are, of course, going to have health emergencies as well. Smaller 25 or fewer bed hospitals and other urgent care locations act as a stopgap until a patient can be relocated to a hospital that may be able to provide specialists with more practical experience to help support the patient's emergency situation.
CMS also highly supports and encourages preventive care to help identify possible health issues early, which results in better patient outcomes as well as lower costs for both CMS and the patient. CMS additionally evaluates all sorts of providers to make sure that they are properly administering care. If a provider is found to be lacking, they may lose their ability to bill Medicare. CMS also utilizes incentives, such as higher reimbursements, to encourage providers to make improvements on the provider's side.