CMS Coverage MCP

Anthropic-published MCP server distributed via the anthropics/healthcare plugin marketplace. Exposes the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Coverage Database — both Local Coverage Determinations (LCDs) and National Coverage Determinations (NCDs) — to Claude for prior-authorization checks, appeals drafting, and Medicare policy lookup.


Type	MCP server
Supplier	Anthropic
Availability	GA — shipped 2026-01 with the Claude for Healthcare launch
Pricing	Free / OSS
Capabilities	Read-only — queries CMS coverage policy data
Verified	works · 2026-07-20
Security	caution · 2026-07-20 — first-party Anthropic, plugins confirmed in marketplace.json but repo has no top-level LICENSE despite Free/OSS claim

How to install

Claude Code — plugin marketplace (recommended):
```
/plugin marketplace add anthropics/healthcare
/plugin install healthcare@healthcare
```
The CMS Coverage MCP now ships as one of the connected MCP servers inside the consolidated healthcare plugin (the older standalone cms-coverage@healthcare plugin is deprecated upstream). The server is a hosted HTTP endpoint at https://hcls.mcp.claude.com/cms_coverage/mcp.

Claude Code — direct MCP add (without the plugin):

claude mcp add --transport http cms-coverage https://hcls.mcp.claude.com/cms_coverage/mcp

Claude Desktop — Desktop has no native HTTP transport; proxy the hosted endpoint via mcp-remote:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cms-coverage": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://hcls.mcp.claude.com/cms_coverage/mcp"]
    }
  }
}

What it does

Wraps the CMS Coverage Database with MCP tools that let Claude:

Look up LCDs and NCDs by region, contractor, code, or condition.
Verify locally-applicable Medicare coverage requirements ahead of a prior-authorization submission.
Surface coverage gaps when drafting a claims appeal.

Primary use cases: Revenue-cycle teams checking coverage prior to claim submission; prior-authorization triage; payer-policy research; appeals-drafting workflows. Pair with prior-auth-review (skill) and icd-10-codes / npi-registry (MCPs) for end-to-end PA review.

Notes

US-Medicare-specific. Does not cover Medicaid managed-care plans, commercial payers, or non-US health systems — for those, draft from payer-specific medical policy documents independently. Verify policy currency: CMS publishes updates on a rolling basis.

Sources

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