End-Stage Renal Disease

Dialysis Facility Care Compare (DFCC) on Medicare.gov

What is DFCC?

The Dialysis Facility Care Compare (DFCC) on Medicare.gov Care Compare website is hosted by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and has information about dialysis clinics and the care they provide. 

A key feature of the DFCC on Medicare.gov is the Quality of Patient Care Star Rating, which provides a simple summary of the quality of care a dialysis clinic provides. CMS developed the Quality of Patient Care Star Rating in response to a national call for greater transparency in how to measure the quality of care for patients with kidney disease and consumers’ desire to use health care quality data to make informed decisions. The Quality of Patient Care Star Rating was implemented in 2015.  

The DFCC on Medicare.gov also includes Star Ratings from patient experience surveys collected through the In-Center Hemodialysis (ICH) Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) survey. Results from the survey are displayed as 1 to 5 stars based on how patients rated their facility.

Latest DFCC News

• The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) November Dialysis Facilities Care Compare (DFCC) preview period begins Friday, November 1, 2024 and ends on November 15, 2024. Your facility or organization’s DFCC Patient Lists and Preview Period Reports will be available for download in a new Care Compare module within the ESRD Quality Reporting System (EQRS). Users may now access this module. These reports will be available for download until the beginning of the January 2025 DFCC preview period. For more information and instructions on accessing your reports, click here (PDF).
• The DFCC October Refresh has been released. For more information, please review the October 2024 Refresh Questions and Answers (PDF). For information on previous refreshes, visit the DFCC Star Ratings & Data Refreshes page.
• The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released a new video, Why I Chose a Kidney Transplant – Patient Stories, which features stories from three people with kidney failure who received a kidney transplant.
  • The video details their kidney transplant journeys, including:
    • Starting on dialysis
    • Getting on the kidney transplant list or finding a donor
    • Recovery after the transplant 
    • Life post-transplant

You can watch the complete video and view the individual stories for Brandon, Chiquita, and Lisa.

Now available! Our new Provider Data Catalog makes it easier for you to search & download our publicly reported data. We’ve also improved Medicare’s compare sites.