Medicare Healthcare Cost Report Information System (HCRIS) Hospital Data

RPC knows that data collection and working with large data sets can be a challenge, and has created the Health Data Store to serve as a continuously updated repository of health care data. The Health Data Store can provide you with customizable data, ranging from large nation-wide data sets to smaller and more pointed reports or health care snapshots. Our experience working with HCRIS data allows us to query and package HCRIS data with confidence. We can also incorporate information from several different data sets to create in-depth, longitudinal analysis of the health care markets you are interested in. Please do not hesitate to contact us to discuss how the Health Data Store can help you with your information needs.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) collects data from every hospital receiving Medicare reimbursement.  The resulting Cost Report data includes financial, descriptive and operational data on each provider, and is loaded into HCRIS, a structured database each quarter. The Health Data Store holds a copy of the HCRIS data dictionarywhich includes a layout of the database and the data elements it contains. CMS updates the HCRIS database quarterly, and the Health Data Store has the most recent update and historical data.

Some useful data elements include:

• Provider’s Cost to Charge Ratios
• Total inpatient Medicare Days
• Total Medicare Observation Days
• Services offered by provider (including laboratory, rehabilitation, outpatient and psychiatric services)
• Costs broken down by cost centers
• Detailed financial reports
• Medicare reimbursement amounts
• Number of hospital interns and residents
• Average hospital hourly wage
• Costs related to uncompensated care

RPC has access to HCRIS hospital data from Fiscal Year 1995 to the most recently released year.

Reporting Facilities
In the most recent quarter released, there are records for nearly 9,000 hospitals.

Data Applications
We can provide custom reports, graphs and maps using this data file and combining it with other health care utilization files.

The tabulations and analysis RPC offers based on HCRIS hospital data has many potential uses for healthcare planners, financial analysts, and hospital executives. RPC offers custom reports using the HCRIS hospital data, and our consultants are happy to talk to you about how we can use the file to best meet your needs. A sample of the kinds of healthcare and financial data that can be gathered from the file are included below.

• Comparison of Cost to Charge ratios across providers and geographies
• Comparison of hospital wages across geographies and time
• Historical analysis of a provider’s services and charges
• Analysis of service lines offered within a geographic area
• Comparison of average length of stay
• Comparison of charity care policies and amount of uncompensated care provided

Data Use Restrictions
This file has no data use restrictions.