Relaunch of PEPPER for Short-Term Acute Care Hospitals

From the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Dear PEPPER Partner,

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is pleased to announce the relaunch of the Program for Evaluating Payment Patterns Electronic Report (PEPPER) for Short-Term Acute Care Hospitals.

PEPPER is a valuable resource designed to support providers in evaluating their billing practices. By analyzing PEPPER data, facilities can:

• Identify where they need to change billing practices,
• Detect areas requiring audit or monitoring,
• Recognize potential Diagnosis-Related Groups (DRG) at risk for under-coding or over-coding problems, and
• Monitor trends in length of stay across target areas.

Accessing PEPPER
At this time, only National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NPPES) Authorized Officials (AOs) and Access Managers (AMs) with active Identity & Access Management (I&A) System accounts may access the PEPPER Portal [pepper.cbrpepper.org] and download reports. Staff End Users (SEUs) are expected to gain access beginning April 2026. Until then, SEUs should coordinate with their designated AO or AM to obtain the report.

All AOs and AMs should watch for an email from CMS with detailed instructions on accessing the PEPPER Portal and downloading the report.

User Guide
For comprehensive guidance on the PEPPER release, please refer to the official documentation: Short-Term Acute Care Program for Evaluating Payment Patterns Electronic Report User Guide [pepper.cbrpepper.org].

Sincerely,

The CMS PEPPER Team