Thursday, February 3, 2022

CMS Updates Pathways to Diverse Kinds of Data Files

 CMS periodically updates pathways and webpages for its provider data files.   On February 3, 2022, CMS announced they had updated a lot of data files to CY2020.   They have also migrated data from "CMS.gov/Research-statistics..." (a main tab on the CMS.gov home page) to CMS.data.gov, the new entry point.

See a home page for CMS program statistics here:

https://www.cms.gov/research-statistics-data-and-systems/statistics-trends-and-reports/cmsprogramstatistics

This enters you into 3 main fields of Medicare enrollment, providers, and utilization/payment.  Generally, you get to links that pop you into Data.cms.gov where you get more granular choices.  

There are still some important databases that are hard to find in a logical way and I usually get there by Google.   The most important is the huge annual database with every physician (and lab) and every CPT code paid.  It's here.