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For the First Time, HHS is Making Ownership Data for All Medicare-Certified Home Health Agencies Publicly Available

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For the First Time, HHS is Making Ownership Data for All Medicare-Certified Home Health Agencies Publicly Available

Today, in support of President Biden's recent Executive Order, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is releasing ownership data for all Medicare-certified home health agencies. In a press release, HHS announced that "[f]or the first time, anyone can now review detailed information on the ownership of more than…11,000 home health agencies certified to participate in the Medicare program on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) website."

The data elements include:

  • Enrollment information, such as organization name, type, and practice location addresses;
  • National Provider Identifier (NPI);
  • CMS Certification Number (CCN);
  • Detailed information about each owner such as whether it is an organization or an individual and whether it is a direct owner or indirect owner (that is, there is at least one subsidiary between it and the provider); and 
  • Numerical associate ID for each owner to enable linkage to the enrollment file.

Additional files that include data on mergers, acquisitions, consolidations, and changes of ownership since 2016 for home health agencies enrolled in Medicare are also being made available as part of this release.

The transparency of ownership information allows researchers and enforcement agencies to identify common owners with a history of poor performance, analyze data and trends on how market consolidation impacts consumers with increased costs without necessarily improving quality of care, and evaluate how ownership affects health care costs and outcomes. The public benefits from transparent ownership data by making more informed decisions about care. Using these data, HHS plans to develop policy approaches that will improve competition in health care.

CMS expects to release updated home health agency ownership data on a quarterly basis in a searchable format on Data.CMS.gov, in addition to a flat Excel file available for download to make it easier for researchers to use. Home health agency enrollment data can be found at Data.CMS.gov.

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