The Medicare Geographic Variation by Hospital Referral Region dataset provides information for researchers and policymakers to evaluate the geographic differences in the use and quality of health care services for the Original Medicare population. The dataset includes demographic, spending, use, and quality indicators at the hospital referral region (HRR) level. Please note that CMS has decided to discontinue updates to the Fee-for-Service (FFS) Geographic Variation Public Use File by Hospital Referral Region, so the dataset is retired. Data in the FFS Geographic Variation Public Use File by Hospital Referral Region has been divided into two files: 2007-2013 data and 2014-2021 data. This was done to account for changes to the Geographic Variation methodology beginning with data year 2014. The 2007-2013 data is located under data year 2013, and the 2014-2021 data is located under data year 2021.

The Medicare Geographic Variation by National, State & County dataset provides information on the geographic differences in the use and quality of health care services for the Original Medicare population. This dataset contains demographic, spending, use, and quality indicators at the state level (including the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands) and the county level. Spending is standardized to remove geographic differences in payment rates for individual services as a source of variation. In general, total standardized per capita costs are less than actual per capita costs because the extra payments Medicare made to hospitals were removed, such as payments for medical education (both direct and indirect) and payments to hospitals that serve a disproportionate share of low-income patients. Standardization does not adjust for differences in beneficiaries’ health status.

The Medicare Advantage Geographic Variation National & State dataset provides information on demographic characteristics and service utilization for hospital inpatient, skilled nursing facility services, outpatient, DME, and professional services between 2016-2022 for Medicare Advantage beneficiaries at the national and state levels.

The Medicare Inpatient Hospitals by Geography and Service dataset provides information on hospital discharges for Original Medicare Part A beneficiaries by IPPS hospitals. This dataset contains information on the number of discharges, payments, and submitted charges organized by geography and Medicare Severity Diagnosis Related Group (DRG).

The Medicare Monthly Enrollment data provides current monthly information on the number of Medicare beneficiaries with hospital/medical coverage and prescription drug coverage, available for several geographic areas including national, state/territory, and county. The hospital/medical coverage data can be broken down further by health care delivery (Original Medicare versus Medicare Advantage and Other Health Plans) and the prescription drug coverage data can be examined by those enrolled in stand-alone Prescription Drug Plans and those enrolled in Medicare Advantage Prescription Drug plans. The dataset provides monthly and yearly enrollee trends.