Definition
Medicare Enrollment Revalidation
Medicare enrollment revalidation is the periodic process in which every enrolled Medicare provider and supplier must resubmit and recertify its enrollment information, generally every five years and every three years for DMEPOS suppliers.
1 min readReviewed September 14, 2026
Also known as: Medicare revalidation, Revalidation, Provider revalidation, Revalidation due date
Key facts
- Regulation
- 42 CFR 424.515
- Standard cycle
- Every 5 years
- DMEPOS suppliers
- Every 3 years
- How
- PECOS online or the matching CMS-855 paper form
- If missed
- Medicare billing privileges can be deactivated
What is Medicare revalidation?
Enrollment in Medicare is not permanent. To keep billing privileges, every provider and supplier must periodically confirm that its enrollment data is still accurate: practice locations, ownership, reassignments, licenses and managing employees. This recertification is called revalidation.
CMS sets a revalidation due date for each enrollment and publishes upcoming due dates in a public lookup tool. The Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC) also sends a notice. Providers can submit up to several months before the due date.
How revalidation works
The process follows the original enrollment path:
- The provider submits updated information through PECOS or the CMS-855 form that matches its enrollment type.
- Institutional providers and suppliers pay an application fee, which CMS updates each year.
- The MAC verifies the information and may request more documentation or a site visit.
- CMS can also require off-cycle revalidation at any time, outside the normal schedule.
Why revalidation matters
Missing a revalidation deadline leads to deactivation of Medicare billing privileges. Services furnished while deactivated may not be payable, so practices track due dates closely, especially for every clinician who reassigns benefits to a group.
For data users, revalidation is one reason Medicare enrollment records change over time. Addresses, ownership and reassignments are refreshed at each cycle, while records for providers who never revalidate eventually disappear from active enrollment files.
Revalidation vs deactivation vs revocation
These outcomes are often confused. Deactivation stops billing privileges for an administrative reason, such as a missed revalidation or no Medicare claims for 12 months, and can usually be reversed by completing the missing step. Revocation is a sanction for reasons such as noncompliance or abuse of billing privileges, ends the provider agreement and comes with a re-enrollment bar, generally of one to ten years.