Cost Reports

HCRIS Data Disclaimer

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has made a reasonable effort to ensure that the provided data/records/reports are up-to-date, accurate, complete, and comprehensive at the time of disclosure. This information reflects data as reported to the Healthcare Cost Report Information System (HCRIS).  These reports are a true and accurate representation of the data on file at CMS. Authenticated information is only accurate as of the point in time of validation and verification. CMS is not responsible for data that is misrepresented, misinterpreted or altered in any way. Derived conclusions and analysis generated from this data are not to be considered attributable to CMS or HCRIS.
 

General Information

Medicare-certified institutional providers are required to submit an annual cost report to a Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC). The cost report contains provider information such as facility characteristics, utilization data, cost and charges by cost center (in total and for Medicare), Medicare settlement data, and financial statement data. CMS maintains the cost report data in the Healthcare Provider Cost Reporting Information System (HCRIS). HCRIS includes data for the Hospital Cost Report (CMS-2552-96 and CMS-2552-10), Skilled Nursing Facility Cost Report (CMS-2540-96 and CMS-2540-10), Home Health Agency Cost Report (CMS-1728-94 and CMS-1728-94), Renal Facility Cost Report (CMS-265-94 and CMS-265-11), Health Clinic Cost Report (CMS-222-92), Hospice Cost Report (CMS-1984-99 and CMS-1984-14), Federally Qualified Health Clinic Cost Report (CMS-224-14), Rural Health Center Cost Report (CMS-222-17), Community Mental Health Center Cost Report (CMS-2088-92 and CMS-2088-17) and Organ Procurement Organizations(CMS-216-94).

The data consists of data elements included in the HCRIS extract created for CMS by the provider's Administrative Contractor.

New Cost Report Data Available (updated 9/30/2024, released 10/17/2024)

* Due to being replaced by newer forms and an absence  of updates, the HOSPICE-1999, SNF-1996 and RNL-1994 data files will no longer be updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

There is a document available at the bottom of this page, the HCRIS FAQ, which answers some questions about HCRIS, the data files, and the cost reporting process.

Technical Assistance

Free assistance to academic, government and non-profit researchers interested in using HCRIS data is available at : ResDAC, the Research Data Assistance Center.

Freedom of Information Act

Individual cost reports may be requested from the Medicare Administrative contractors via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). For more information on this process, visit the FOIA page.

Organization of data files: 

For the Hospital Form 2552-1996, Hospital Form 2552-2010 , SNF Form 2540-1996, SNF Form 2540-2010, HHA Form 1728-1994 and HHA Form 1728-2020 cost reports, there is one zipped file for each fiscal year. The links to these can be found on the "Cost Reports by Fiscal Year" page.

For the Hospice, Renal, Health Clinic, OPO and CMHC cost reports, there is one zipped file each that contains all data for all the fiscal years. The links to these can be found on their section pages. 

Each zipped file contains the Report (Rpt);  Numeric(Nmrc);  and Alpha-Numeric(Alphnmrc) files for the fiscal year covered.  Additionally, Hospital(1996), SNF(1996)and HHA(1994) data sets will contain a Rollup file for each year. These files may be unzipped with Winzip or other decompression tools.

Notes

The Hospital and Skilled Nursing Facility cost report data cannot be loaded into Microsoft Excel.  The numeric data file for these cost reports is too large for the application. 

Most of our data users are loading the data into Oracle, SAS, SPSS Statistical Package, Microsoft SQL Server, or DB2.  CMS does not support or provide any technical assistance for a user's choice of analysis tool. 

Please see the report specific documentation on the each cost report's web page. Send any further questions about this data to our Healthcare Cost Report Information System (HCRIS) mailbox HCRIS@cms.hhs.gov.