Provider of Services Current Files

The POS file contains data on characteristics of hospitals and other types of healthcare facilities, including the name and address of the facility and the type of Medicare services the facility provides, among other information.  The data are collected through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Regional Offices. The file contains an individual record for each Medicare-approved provider and is updated quarterly. The data is an invaluable resource to a variety of stakeholders, including researchers and application developers.  

This file has previously only been available to the public for a fee.  Now, the Provider of Services (POS) files are being made available as free downloads.  The most current four quarters will be posted to this website and the December quarter for each previous year will be available on the left margin.

Data Format: Download files offered in both TXT flat files and csv self-extracting ZIP files. There is one file for the first 18 facility types, labeled “OTHER”, and one file for the CLIA laboratories, labeled “CLIA”.

FILE SIZE NOTE: File size is approximately 15MB – 36 MB and may be too large to open on a desktop.  Compatible Software Programs: Microsoft Access, Microsoft SQL/DB2/Oracle, SAS or other statistical software. (Note: Microsoft Excel or TextPad cannot be used to analyze the POS file)

SOURCE OF DATA NOTE: Please be aware that as part of the process to convert from the Online Survey Certification & Reporting System (OSCAR) to the Quality Improvement Evaluation System (QIES), the OSCAR Standard and User Defined reports along with the extract functionality are now available in QIES. The second quarter 2011 POS files and all POS files in the future are extracted from QIES. Therefore, the file names and formats have changed. Please refer to the corresponding record layout generated for each POS data file.

Interactive files are also available on the Socrata platform at  http://data.cms.gov/browse?tags=pos

Click here to subscribe and receive updates to the Provider of Services file.

File Categories

1. Hospital
2. SNF/NF (dually)
3. SNF/NF (distinct)
4. Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNF)
5. Home Health Agencies (HHA)
6. Portable X-Rays
7. Physical Therapy/Speech Pathology
8. End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD)
9. Nursing Facilities (NF)
10. Intermediate Care Facility-Mentally Retarded (ICF/MR)
11. Rural Health Clinic
12. Physical Therapy - Independent Practice
13. Comprehensive Outpatient Rehab Facilities (CORF)
14. Ambulatory Surgical Centers (ASC)
15. Hospices
16. Organ Procurement Organization
17. Community Mental Health Centers (CMHC)
18. Federally Qualified Health Centers
19. CLIA88 Laboratories added: effective 1997