Suppression of Substance Abuse Claims in Medicaid Data and Rates of Diagnoses for Non-Substance Abuse Conditions.

In a change from longstanding practice, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently began suppressing substance abuse–related claims in the Medicare and Medicaid Research Identifiable Files.1,2 This change was enacted to comply with a 1987 federal regulation barring third party payers from releasing information from federally funded substance abuse treatment programs without patient consent.