CMS Hospital Compare Scraper

Export U.S. hospital profiles and CMS quality ratings from the public CMS Provider Data Hospital General Information dataset.

Use this Apify Actor when you need a repeatable CSV, JSON, Excel, API, or MCP workflow for Hospital Compare data without building your own CMS API pagination and normalization logic.

What does CMS Hospital Compare Scraper do?

CMS Hospital Compare Scraper collects hospital records from the official CMS Provider Data API dataset xubh-q36u.

It returns one normalized dataset row per matching hospital.

The actor includes CMS facility IDs, facility names, address fields, county, phone number, hospital type, ownership, emergency-services availability, birthing-friendly designation, and CMS overall hospital rating.

It is designed for healthcare benchmarking, market mapping, provider-network research, and public-data monitoring workflows.

Why use this hospital compare scraper?

✅ No login required.

✅ Uses the official public CMS Provider Data API.

✅ Normalizes CMS field names into stable dataset columns.

✅ Supports state, city, facility, ownership, type, emergency-service, and rating filters.

✅ Works as an Apify dataset export, API integration, scheduled monitor, or MCP tool.

Who is it for?

Healthcare consultants can benchmark hospitals by state, type, ownership, and star rating.

Payers and provider-network teams can build facility lists for network adequacy and market analysis.

Compliance and quality teams can monitor official CMS hospital ratings and public facility metadata.

Healthcare reputation teams can identify hospitals by location and rating segments.

Lead-generation teams can build targeted lists of hospitals by ownership, region, or emergency services.

Data engineers can pipe CMS Hospital Compare records into warehouses, dashboards, or CRMs.

What data can you extract?

Field	Description
facilityId	CMS facility identifier
facilityName	Hospital/facility name
address	Street address
city	City/town
state	Two-letter state code
zipCode	ZIP code
county	County/parish
phone	Telephone number
hospitalType	CMS hospital type
ownership	CMS ownership category
emergencyServices	Boolean emergency-services flag
birthingFriendlyDesignation	CMS birthing-friendly designation value
overallRating	Numeric CMS overall hospital rating when available
overallRatingRaw	Raw CMS rating text
overallRatingFootnote	CMS footnote for missing/suppressed ratings
cmsSourceUrl	Source dataset URL
scrapedAt	Extraction timestamp

Input filters

Use states to limit records to one or more U.S. states.

Use city when you need hospitals in a specific city or metro naming pattern.

Use facilityName to find a named hospital system or campus.

Use facilityIds when you already know exact CMS IDs.

Use hospitalTypes for values such as Acute Care Hospitals or Critical Access Hospitals.

Use ownershipTypes for CMS ownership categories such as Proprietary or Voluntary non-profit - Private.

Use emergencyServices to select hospitals with or without emergency services.

Use minOverallRating and maxOverallRating to focus on hospitals with CMS star ratings in a range.

Use maxResults to cap the number of dataset rows.

Example input: California and Texas hospitals

{
  "states": ["CA", "TX"],
  "emergencyServices": "any",
  "maxResults": 100
}

Example input: high-rated hospitals in one state

{
  "states": ["FL"],
  "minOverallRating": 4,
  "emergencyServices": "yes",
  "maxResults": 250
}

Example input: search by facility name

{
  "facilityName": "children",
  "states": ["NY", "NJ", "PA"],
  "maxResults": 100
}

Output example

{
  "facilityId": "050025",
  "facilityName": "UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS MEDICAL CENTER",
  "address": "2315 STOCKTON BOULEVARD",
  "city": "SACRAMENTO",
  "state": "CA",
  "zipCode": "95817",
  "county": "SACRAMENTO",
  "phone": "9167342011",
  "hospitalType": "Acute Care Hospitals",
  "ownership": "Government - Hospital District or Authority",
  "emergencyServices": true,
  "overallRating": 4,
  "overallRatingRaw": "4",
  "cmsSourceUrl": "https://data.cms.gov/provider-data/dataset/xubh-q36u",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-29T00:00:00.000Z"
}

How much does it cost to scrape CMS Hospital Compare data?

This actor uses pay-per-event pricing: a $0.005 run-start event plus a per-hospital result event.

Apify plan tier	Price per hospital record	1,000 records
Free	$0.000031109	$0.0311
Bronze	$0.000027052	$0.0271
Silver	$0.000021100	$0.0211
Gold	$0.000016231	$0.0162
Platinum	$0.000010821	$0.0108
Diamond	$0.000010000	$0.0100

The default test input is intentionally small so you can validate the output before running a larger export.

For larger recurring jobs, use maxResults and filters to control cost.

How to run the scraper

1. Open the actor on Apify.

2. Enter state, city, facility, type, ownership, rating, and result-limit filters.

3. Click Start.

4. Download the dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, or RSS.

5. Use the API or scheduler for repeatable workflows.

Scheduling hospital data monitors

You can schedule this actor to refresh hospital records weekly, monthly, or quarterly.

A scheduled run is useful when your team tracks CMS public-data changes, provider lists, quality-rating changes, or market coverage.

Store each run in an Apify dataset and compare snapshots in your own warehouse or BI tool.

API usage with JavaScript

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('automation-lab/cms-hospital-compare-scraper').call({
  states: ['CA'],
  minOverallRating: 4,
  maxResults: 100,
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

API usage with Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient('YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN')
run = client.actor('automation-lab/cms-hospital-compare-scraper').call(run_input={
    'states': ['CA'],
    'minOverallRating': 4,
    'maxResults': 100,
})
items = client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).list_items().items
print(items)

API usage with cURL

curl -X POST 'https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/automation-lab~cms-hospital-compare-scraper/runs?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"states":["CA"],"maxResults":100}'

MCP integration

Use Apify MCP to call this hospital compare extractor from Claude Code, Claude Desktop, or another MCP-compatible client.

Add the tool in Claude Code:

$claude mcp add apify-cms-hospital-compare https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/cms-hospital-compare-scraper

MCP server URL:

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/cms-hospital-compare-scraper

Claude Desktop configuration example:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify-cms-hospital-compare": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/cms-hospital-compare-scraper"
    }
  }
}

Example prompts:

• MCP usage: "Use the Apify CMS Hospital Compare MCP tool to find acute care hospitals in California with CMS overall rating 4 or higher."
• MCP usage: "Run automation-lab/cms-hospital-compare-scraper through MCP and export hospitals in Texas that report emergency services."
• MCP usage: "Use the hospital compare scraper MCP tool to create a CSV of proprietary hospitals in Florida from CMS Provider Data."

Integrations

Send hospital records to Google Sheets for analyst review.

Load CMS hospital profiles into BigQuery, Snowflake, PostgreSQL, or another warehouse.

Push matching facilities into a CRM for healthcare outreach.

Combine this dataset with internal claims, referral, or quality data.

Monitor official CMS hospital metadata changes over time.

Data freshness

The actor reads the current public CMS Provider Data API response at run time.

CMS updates the underlying dataset on its own schedule.

Use scrapedAt to track when your Apify snapshot was collected.

Tips for better results

Use exact two-letter state codes for state filters.

Use CMS's own hospital type and ownership wording for exact category filters.

Start with broad filters, inspect values, then tighten hospital type or ownership filters.

Set minOverallRating only when you want to exclude Not Available ratings.

Increase maxResults for statewide or national exports.

Limitations

This actor exports the Hospital General Information dataset only.

It does not currently join every separate CMS measure-level dataset.

Some hospitals have Not Available overall ratings; those are returned with overallRating set to null.

CMS field names and dataset contents may change over time; the actor normalizes known fields and keeps the raw rating text for transparency.

Legality

Is scraping CMS Hospital Compare legal?

This actor uses a public U.S. government data API.

You are responsible for using exported data in compliance with applicable laws, Apify terms, and your organization's policies.

Do not use the data for unlawful discrimination, spam, or misleading healthcare claims.

Troubleshooting

If a rating filter returns fewer records than expected, remember that hospitals with Not Available ratings are excluded by numeric rating filters.

If a hospital type filter returns no records, run a broader state query first and copy the exact CMS hospitalType value from the output.

If your run stops before a national export completes, increase maxResults and check whether your filters are too narrow.

FAQ

Does this actor require a CMS API key?

No. It uses the public CMS Provider Data API without an API key.

Does it use a browser?

No. It is an HTTP/API actor, which keeps runs fast and inexpensive.

Can I export all hospitals in the United States?

Yes. Leave filters empty and set maxResults high enough for your export.

Can I monitor changes?

Yes. Schedule recurring runs and compare output datasets by facilityId.

Can I filter by star rating?

Yes. Use minOverallRating and maxOverallRating for CMS overall hospital ratings.

Related scrapers

Explore other Automation Lab public-data and healthcare actors at https://apify.com/automation-lab/.

Potential companion workflows include nursing home comparison, clinical trials monitoring, provider directory enrichment, and healthcare lead generation.

Support

If you need another CMS dataset joined into this actor, open an Apify issue with the dataset name, fields, and target workflow.

We prioritize additions that improve repeatable healthcare benchmarking, compliance, and market-research workflows.