FCSO Medicare Provider Web Site Search
Basic Search Help
Forming a Query
A search can be performed on any page of the Web site in the upper-right corner of the Web page or on the main search page.
This is the search interface that can be accessed from the top-right corner of every Web page on the Medicare provider Web sites:
A search query can be entered to search the entire Web site and also the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Web site. To narrow down your search to a specific location you can use the drop-down category menu directly to the right of the search input box.
This is a close-up image of the search box and the category drop-down box:
The main search page has this interface:
Interpreting Search Results
When a query is submitted it will come back with another query form and up to 10 matching documents. If there are more than 10 answers, a link at bottom of the list will allow you to view the next 10 in sequence.
The input form at the top allows you to further tailor your query to home-in on the desired answers, or to submit a completely new query without having to navigate back to the original input form.
Sample search result:
The components of each result are:
• Document/page title - Clicking on this will take you to the document/page.
• Abstract - Text or description of the document/page. Most of the time the abstract is taken from text surrounding the search query in the document/page.
• URL - The Web address of the document/page. The URL will indicate the file type of the document/page.
• Match quality bar graph - Relevancy match of search query to document/page.
• Show Parents - List pages that link to this one. Often it is difficult to navigate using a search engine because there is no back-link present on the matching document. The Show Parents link solves this. This link will show other documents that contain hyperlinks to the one you click on. It could be considered to be an automated back button.
• File Size - How big is the document/page
Advanced Search Help
The Web site’s search can be as simple or as complex as you need it to be. Usually you will just need to enter a few words that best describe that which you are trying to locate.
Query Rules of Thumb
If you get too many junk or nonsense answers, try:
• Add some more words to your query.
• Use the Exclusion Operator (-) to remove unwanted terms.
• If you are searching for a phrase, hyphenate the words together.
• Use the search within results feature. Search within results allows you to narrow-down your searches by searching only within your initial search results.
If you don’t get any answers, or just too few:
• Remove some more words in your query.
• Examine your spelling.
Keyword Phrases and Wildcards
To locate words, just type them in as you would in a word processor. Letter cases will be ignored. The wildcard character * (asterisk) may be used to match just the prefix of a word or to ignore the middle of something.
To locate a number of adjacent words in a specific order, surround them with " (double quotation) characters. Putting a - (hyphen) between words will also force order and one word proximity.
Query examples
Query |
Locates |
|---|---|
john |
john, John |
"john public" |
John Public |
web-browser |
Web browser, web-browser |
John*Public |
John Q. Public, John Public |
456*a*def |
1-456-789-ABCDEF |
activate |
activate, activation, activated, ... * |
Applying Search Logic
Sets (or lists) of things are specified by placing the elements within parenthesis, separated by commas.
Example: (bob,joe,sam,sue). In the examples below, you could replace any of the keywords with a list like this.
The default behavior of the search is to locate an intersection (or ’AND’) of every element within a query.
This means that the query: “microsoft bob interface” is the equivalent to the boolean query: “Microsoft AND bob AND interface”.
• - (without) The - (minus) is the most commonly used logic symbol. It means the answer should EXCLUDE references to that item.
• + (mandatory) The + (plus) symbol in front of a search item means that the answer MUST INCLUDE that item. This is generally used in conjunction with the permutation operation.
• @N (permute) The @ followed by a number indicates how many intersections to locate of the terms in your query. This may be confusing at first, but it is very powerful.
Search Logic Examples
Query |
Locates |
|---|---|
bob sam joe |
Bob with Sam and Joe |
bob sam -joe |
Bob with Sam without Joe |
bob sam joe @1 |
Bob with Sam, or Bob with Joe, or Joe with Sam |
A B C D @1 |
AB or AC or AD or BC or BD or CD |
+A B C D @1 |
ABC or ABD or ACD |
A B C -D @1 |
( AB or AC or BC ) without D |
The plus(+) and minus(-) operators must be attached to the term to which they apply. There must be a space between the operator and any preceding term.
Correct |
Incorrect |
|---|---|
bob +sam -joe |
bob + sam – joe |
bob+sam-joe |
Natural Language Query
You may enter a query in the form of a sentence or question. The software will automatically identify the important words and phrases within your query and remove the “noise words”.
Example: What is the state of the art in text retrieval?
The software will search for: state of the art AND text AND retrieval
