CMS Cost Reports - sporedata/researchdesigneR GitHub Wiki
General description
- CMS manages Medicare, the US health insurance program for older people, and those who qualify for Social Security Administration disability benefits. It can be linked to non-CMS data (US Census, cancer registries, Medicaid, the Social Security death index, and American Hospital Association data).
- The advantages of CMS data are that they are population-based, not subject to recall bias, and can be linked to [NCHS] population health surveys to expand both data sources' analytic potential.
- The Hospital Cost Report Public Use File (HCR PUF) is organized at the hospital level and comprises a subset of commonly used measures provided by hospitals via annual cost reports.
- The variables in the HCR PUF are identical to those in the online HCRIS system SAS datasets as of July 31, 2020.
Variable categories
- Cost center information
- Total cost
- Total inpatient and outpatient charge
- Cost to charge ratio
More details are available here and here
Limitations
- CMS data are collected for the purpose of making healthcare payments, and not for research, there are limitations to the data that you should consider when analyzing;
- There is no physiological or biochemical patient information, such as vital signs, laboratory test results, and pathology results;
- There are no timestamps during a hospital stay. This can limit the study of how care progresses or when events and complications occur during hospitalization;
- Lack of data on uncovered services or benefits and managed care enrollee information. This limits the evaluation of outpatient utilization patterns;
- Researchers using the Home Health Agency data need to be aware of changes over time in how CMS codes HHA services;