Hospital Cost Reports
Medicare-certified institutional providers are required to submit an annual cost report to a Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC). Cost reports contain 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. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) maintains the cost report data in the Healthcare Provider Cost Reporting Information System (HCRIS).
HCRIS includes subsystems for
- 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)
- Renal Facility Cost Report (CMS-265-94 and CMS-265-11)
- Health Clinic Cost Report (CMS-222-92)
- Hospice Cost Report (CMS-1984-99)
- Community Mental Health Center Cost Report (CMS-2088-92)
RAND Hospital Data Tool
The RAND Hospital Data tool is an effort to enhance CMS HCRIS data to make them more accessible to a broad audience of academics, analysts, and hospital executives and their consultants who work regularly with the data to solve various problems and answer complex questions. RAND researchers have a broad range of experience using hospital data.
Some examples of RAND projects using hospital data are:
- Hospital Price Transparency Pilot, led by Chapin White.
- Advisory and Assistance Services in the Areas of Health Care Financing and Medicare, led by Barb Wynn. [Related report: Does It Cost More to Train Residents or to Replace Them?]
- Design, Development, Implementation, Monitoring, and Refinement of A Prospective Payment System for Inpatient Rehabilitation, led by Grace Carter. [Related report: Analyses for the Initial Implementation of the Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility Prospective Payment System]
- Cost Trends for New Jersey Hospitals, led by Chapin White and Soeren Mattke. [Related report: Evaluating the Impact of Policies to Regulate Involuntary Out-of-Network Charges on New Jersey Hospitals]
- Analysis of Payment Differentials for Equivalent Services in Different Provider Settings, led by Barb Wynn. [Related report: Policy Options for Addressing Medicare Payment Differentials Across Ambulatory Settings]
- Methodology for Measuring Case Mix Change, led by Grace Carter. [Related report: Contributions of Case Mix and Intensity Change to Hospital Cost Increases]
- Medicare Reimbursement and the Quality of Hospital Care, led by Katherine Kahn. [Related report: The Effects of the DRG-Based Prospective Payment System on Quality of Care for Hospitalized Medicare Patients]
- Practice Expense Methodology and Data Collection Research and Analysis, led by Lane Burgette. [Related report: Practice Expense Methodology and Data Collection Research and Analysis]
About the RAND Corporation
The RAND Corporation is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. RAND is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and committed to the public interest.
RAND projects occasionally provide services of a specialized nature that require ongoing maintenance and investment. In such cases, the project may charge access fees to recover costs and/or allow for reinvestment to strengthen our offerings. The RAND Hospital Data project is one of these projects.
