Search Tips

Medicare NHIC, Corp. utilizes the power of Google to provide you with an easier and faster way of accessing information on our web site. This page provides tips on how to create queries that would produce the best search results.

The Basics

A query is simply a description of information that you need. The Search tool will search for documents that are a best match for the words in your query. It will also search for documents that are about the same concepts that your query describes.  Sometimes the search will bring back articles that don't mention any of the words in your original query.

Don't worry about providing too many words—the more words, the better. Additional words will help the Search figure out what concepts you're really interested in. On the other hand, the Search will do a pretty good job of figuring out what documents are interesting to you even if your query is unclear.

For example, let's say you're searching a Web site for documents about bone mass measurements. You would type in:

Bone Mass Measurements

If you have a particular question about bone mass measurements, for example: how often screening tests are available for bone mass measurements, you would type in:

How often screening tests for bone mass measurements

Even if there are no documents that are actually about how often there are screening tests, the Search will still show you documents on bone mass measurements.

Search Query Tips

Our search tool offers numerous options for making your searches more precise and useful. You could easily improve your search results by adding operators to your search terms or by using our advanced search tool.

Here are some suggestions for getting the best search results:

·         Use More Words
The easiest way to narrow your search, and the first thing you should try is to use more words. The greater the detail you provide, the better search is able to find precisely what you're looking for.

·        Use “+” to require words
If a word is essential to getting the results you want, or if you want to ensure a word is included exactly as you enter it, add a "+" sign immediately in front of it.

Example Search: Incident +To. Ensures that results include “To” in a search for “Incident To”.

·        Use “-“ to exclude words
If you put a minus sign (-) in front of a search word, the search will make sure that NONE of the documents it returns contain the word. Do not put any space between the minus sign (-) and the word.

Example search: Preventative Services-Colorectal. None of the results will have the word “colorectal” in them.

·        Synonym Search
If you want to search not only for your search term but also for its synonyms, place the tilde sign ("~") immediately in front of your search term.
Example Search: ~Doctor. This search would return results that include “medical”, “physician” and “doctor”.

·        You can use the AND, OR, NOT, and AND NOT, and quotation marks “”.

What they do/How to use them:

AND - Documents found must contain all words joined by the word AND. Note that this is equivalent to putting a plus sign (+) in front of the word.
Example search: To find documents that have all of the words wizard, oz and movie, you could enter: wizard AND oz AND movie

OR - Documents found must contain at least one of the words joined by OR.
Example search: To find documents that have either the words cat or kitten you could enter: cat OR kitten

AND NOT - Documents found cannot contain the word after the term AND NOT. Note that this is equivalent to putting a minus sign (-) in front of the word.
Example search: To find documents that have the word pets, but not the word dogs, you could enter: pets AND NOT dogs

“” – Quotation marks are used to search an exact phrase.
Example Search: “1500 Claim Form”. All results return with the exact phrase 1500 Claim Form.

Advanced Search

The advanced search page gives you the power the specify search keywords exactly how you want them. You can do a lot more with search than just typing in keywords. With Advanced Search, you can search for pages that fall under the following criteria:

        contains ALL the search terms you type in

        contains the exact phrase you type in

        contains at least one of the words you type in

        does NOT contain any of the words you type in

        documents in a certain file format

         documents that have been updated within a certain period of time

         documents within a certain site (Part B, DME or Beneficiaries)

06/17/08