US · guidance
CMS Pub. 100-04, ch. 30, § 450.3.3
Required Delivery Timeframes of the MCSN
Hospitals must deliver the MCSN as soon as possible after a beneficiary is eligible for
this process per §450.2, but no later than four hours prior to discharge.
For beneficiaries with Part B, the notice must be delivered as soon as possible after the
hospital reclassifies the beneficiary from inpatient to outpatient receiving observation
services and the third day in the hospital is reached.
For beneficiaries without Medicare Part B coverage, hospitals must deliver the notice as
soon as possible after the change in status from inpatient to outpatient receiving
observation services because a three day hospital stay is not required for these
beneficiaries to be eligible for this expedited appeals process.
History
(Rev. 12934; Issued: 10-31-24; Effective: 11-15-24; Implementation: 02-14-25)
Provenance
- Source
- cms.gov
- Retrieved
- 2026-08-25
- Edition
- iom-2026-08-25
- Content hash
5cab15bc9d34f9d761dd6d77370c864c65fbba8ab705e23f9e261c7a831e2315
The link goes to the issuing authority’s own document — the one we read to produce this record. Where a source publishes whole titles rather than sections, your browser may need a moment to jump to the provision.
Unofficial copy of government-published law, reproduced from official sources with full provenance. Not an official publication; verify against official sources before relying on it in a filing. Records in the 'guidance' corpus, and only that corpus, are sub-regulatory (interpretive guidelines, survey procedures) and are not binding law. Validity bounds follow each jurisdiction's declared temporalBasis.