CMS has released ownership data for all Medicare-certified hospice and home health agencies. For the first time, anyone can now review detailed information on the ownership of more than 6,000 hospices and 11,000 home health agencies certified to participate in the Medicare program on the CMS website, according to a April 20, 2023, news release.
 
The information posted includes enrollment information such as organization name, type, 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 a 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 hospices and home health agencies enrolled in Medicare also are being made available as part of this release.
 
Making ownership information transparent benefits researchers and enforcement agencies by allowing them to identify common owners that have had histories of poor performance, analyze data and trends on how market consolidation impacts consumers with increased costs without necessarily improving quality of care, and evaluate the relationships between ownership and changes in health care costs and outcomes, according to CMS.
 
The information is available at data.cms.gov.
 
CMS expects to release updated hospice and home health ownership data on a quarterly basis in a searchable format, in addition to a flat Excel file available for download to make it easier for researchers to use.