CMS Hospital Quality & Star Ratings - Medicare Hospital Compare Data

Search the CMS Hospital Compare database for quality ratings and safety scores across 5,400+ U.S. hospitals. Filter by state, city, ZIP code, hospital name, type, ownership, and minimum star rating. Get overall quality ratings, mortality measures, patient safety scores, readmission rates, patient experience data, and timely care metrics — all from official Medicare data.

Data is sourced from the CMS public API. No API key required.

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Output Fields

Field	Type	Description
facilityID	string	CMS facility identifier
facilityName	string	Hospital name
address	string	Street address
city	string	City
state	string	State abbreviation
zipCode	string	ZIP code
county	string	County or parish
phoneNumber	string	Hospital phone number
hospitalType	string	Hospital type (Acute Care, Critical Access, Children's, Psychiatric)
hospitalOwnership	string	Ownership type (Government, Voluntary, Proprietary)
emergencyServices	boolean	Whether the hospital has emergency services
birthingFriendly	boolean	Meets CMS birthing-friendly designation criteria
overallRating	string	CMS overall star rating (1–5)
mortalityMeasureCount	string	Number of mortality measures reported
mortalityBetter	string	Mortality measures better than national average
mortalityNoDifferent	string	Mortality measures equal to national average
mortalityWorse	string	Mortality measures worse than national average
safetyMeasureCount	string	Number of safety-of-care measures reported
safetyBetter	string	Safety measures better than national average
safetyNoDifferent	string	Safety measures equal to national average
safetyWorse	string	Safety measures worse than national average
readmissionMeasureCount	string	Number of readmission measures reported
readmissionBetter	string	Readmission measures better than national average
readmissionNoDifferent	string	Readmission measures equal to national average
readmissionWorse	string	Readmission measures worse than national average
patientExperienceMeasureCount	string	Number of patient experience measures
timelyEffectiveMeasureCount	string	Number of timely and effective care measures

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Use Cases

• Healthcare provider benchmarking — Compare hospital quality scores across a state or market for competitive analysis, referral decisions, or network adequacy assessments.
• Health insurance and benefits consulting — Identify high-quality hospitals in a region for network design or member communication.
• Real estate and site selection — Evaluate local hospital quality as a quality-of-life factor for residential or commercial development projects.
• Healthcare journalism and policy research — Analyze star rating distributions by ownership type, geography, or hospital type.
• Patient advocacy and employer benefits — Surface top-rated hospitals with emergency services or specific ownership types for employee health plan materials.
• Investment and M&A due diligence — Assess quality metrics for hospital systems under consideration for investment or acquisition.

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How to Use

Use filter-based search to find hospitals matching your criteria, or look up a specific hospital directly by CMS Facility ID.

Example input — 4- and 5-star hospitals in Texas:

{
  "searchType": "search",
  "state": "TX",
  "hospitalType": "Acute Care Hospitals",
  "minRating": 4,
  "maxResults": 200
}

Example input — search by hospital name:

{
  "searchType": "search",
  "hospitalName": "Mayo",
  "state": "",
  "maxResults": 25
}

Example input — all hospitals in a specific city:

{
  "searchType": "search",
  "state": "CA",
  "city": "Los Angeles",
  "maxResults": 100
}

Example input — direct lookup by CMS Facility ID:

{
  "searchType": "facilityID",
  "facilityID": "010001",
  "maxResults": 1
}

Hospital Type Options

Acute Care Hospitals, Critical Access Hospitals, Childrens, Psychiatric — or leave empty for all types.

Ownership Filter

Use partial text to match ownership type: Government, Proprietary, Voluntary non-profit, etc.

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Cost

Approximately $0.10 per run (platform start fee) plus minimal compute. Most runs complete in under 30 seconds.

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Output Formats

Results are available as JSON, CSV, and Excel from the Apify dataset interface.

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FAQ

Does this require a CMS API key? No. The CMS Hospital Compare data is available through a public API requiring no authentication.

How many hospitals are in the database? Approximately 5,400 Medicare-certified hospitals across all 50 states.

What does the star rating measure? CMS calculates an overall star rating (1–5) based on five quality domains: mortality, safety of care, readmission, patient experience, and timely/effective care. The methodology is published by CMS.

How often is this data updated? CMS updates Hospital Compare data periodically, typically twice per year. Run dates are reflected in the data returned.

What is a Critical Access Hospital? A designation for small rural hospitals (25 or fewer inpatient beds, more than 35 miles from another hospital) that receive enhanced Medicare reimbursement. They are excluded from the overall star rating calculation.

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