Short-term acute care PEPPER report is available through CMS identity controls

What happened

The October 1 MLN Connects newsletter announces the Q2 fiscal-year 2026 PEPPER report for short-term acute-care hospitals. CMS describes the report as a tool to review billing accuracy, locate patterns needing monitoring or internal audit, examine possible undercoding or overcoding and follow trends such as longer stays. A pattern or outlier is an indicator for record review rather than an audit determination or a repayment demand.

Authorized officials, access managers and approved staff end users can obtain the organization’s report through the PEPPER Portal. Staff users sign into CMS Identity and Access using existing NPPES or PECOS credentials, request the PEPPER business function for the organization and need authorized-official or access-manager approval. The Comparative Billing Report function may be requested concurrently. As of October 4, hospitals can assign access and review work through these controls and select documentation samples appropriate to their actual service mix before drawing a compliance conclusion.

Why it matters

Hospital-specific pattern review can focus clinical documentation and coding work without treating peer differences as established errors.

Implementation playbook

1. Confirm authorized report access, review hospital-specific outlier areas and choose documentation samples with Compliance. Compliance · Due 2026-10-09
2. Record the applicability assessment and validate the affected workflow with its operational owner. This is an internal review target, not an additional statutory deadline. Compliance · Due 2026-10-12

Sources

• MLN Connects, October 1, 2026Official · CMS · 2026-10-01 · Source review 2026-10-04