Guide
How do I look up a hospital's cost report data by CCN?
Short answer
Find the hospital's six-digit CMS Certification Number (CCN) in CMS's Hospital General Information file, then read its Medicare cost report from the CMS HCRIS download for that fiscal year. Net patient revenue is Worksheet G-3 line 3. The free CMS files hold everything; our public facility pages do the lookup and the arithmetic for you.
Last reviewed October 19, 2026
What a CCN is
A CMS Certification Number (CCN) is the six-digit number CMS uses to identify a Medicare-certified provider. The first two digits identify the state where the provider is located, and the last four identify the type of facility. Short-term general and specialty hospitals use 0001 to 0879 in those last four digits; critical access hospitals use 1300 to 1399.
CMS data systems use the CCN to identify each provider, which makes it the key that ties a hospital's cost report to its other public records. It is a different identifier from the provider's National Provider Identifier (NPI): CMS's cost report files carry both as separate fields.
Find a hospital's CCN
CMS publishes the Hospital General Information file in its Provider Data Catalog. It lists hospitals registered with Medicare, with the name, address, and a facility_id column. For a hospital, the facility_id is the CCN: 090003, for example, is Howard University Hospital. Search by name or state and copy the six-digit ID, keeping any leading zero.
Where the cost report data lives
Institutional providers file an annual cost report with their Medicare Administrative Contractor, and CMS keeps the data in the Healthcare Provider Cost Reporting Information System (HCRIS). Current hospital reports use Form CMS-2552-10, with data files for fiscal years 2010 onward. Older reports use Form CMS-2552-96.
CMS publishes the hospital files as one zip per fiscal year, each with a report table (Rpt), a numeric table (Nmrc), and an alphanumeric table (Alphnmrc). The report table lists each filed report with its provider number, which is the CCN, and its fiscal year dates. The numeric table holds the values, each addressed by worksheet, line, and column. CMS notes the hospital files cannot be loaded into Excel, so use a database or a statistics package.
When CMS holds more than one version of a report, the files carry the highest status: a reopened report over a final settled one, and a final settled one over an as-submitted one.
Net patient revenue and margin
Both figures come from Worksheet G-3, the statement of revenues and expenses, described in the Provider Reimbursement Manual, Part 2, Chapter 40 (section 4040.4). Line 1 is total patient revenue. Line 2 subtracts allowances and discounts, which include the provision for bad debts, contractual adjustments, and charity discounts. Line 3, net patient revenues, is line 1 minus line 2. Line 4 is total operating expenses, taken from Worksheet G-2, Part II, line 43. Line 5, net income from service to patients, is line 3 minus line 4.
A margin on patient services is line 5 divided by line 3. The facility pages on this site show that figure, labelled Total margin; it is the margin on patient services described here, not a margin on all of the hospital's income. It leaves out the non-patient revenue reported on lines 6 through 24 of the same worksheet, so it will differ from a margin built on the hospital's total net income.
The shortcut
If you only need the figures, our public facility pages do this lookup. Each hospital with a processed cost report has a page at its CCN showing its latest net patient revenue, margin, and bed count, derived from the hospital's own filed cost reports. The free CMS files remain the source of record.
Frequently asked questions
- Is the CCN the same as the NPI?
- No. They are separate identifiers. CMS's cost report table carries the provider number, which is the CCN, and the NPI as two different fields.
- How can I tell which state a CCN is in?
- The first two digits identify the state where the provider is located. Some states use more than one two-digit code, so check CMS's state code list in the State Operations Manual instead of assuming one code per state.
- Can I open the hospital cost report files in Excel?
- CMS says the hospital data cannot be loaded into Microsoft Excel. Load the files into a database or a statistics package instead.
- Which fiscal years are available?
- As of October 2026, CMS lists hospital Form CMS-2552-10 files for fiscal years 2010 to 2026 and Form CMS-2552-96 files for fiscal years 1996 to 2011.
Sources
- CMS State Operations Manual, Chapter 2, section 2779A: CMS Certification NumbersCCN structure, the facility-type ranges, and the state codes
- CMS Provider Data Catalog: Hospital General InformationFinding a hospital's CCN (the facility_id column)
- CMS Cost ReportsWhat HCRIS is, the files offered, and the Excel limitation
- CMS Hospital 2552-2010 cost report dataFiscal years covered, the file contents, and the report status rule
- CMS HCRIS documentation for hospital 2552-10 filesThe report and numeric table layouts
- CMS Provider Reimbursement Manual, Part 2, Chapter 40, section 4040.4 (Worksheet G-3)The definitions of G-3 lines 1 through 5
This guide is general information drawn from the sources above, last reviewed October 19, 2026. It is not legal, reimbursement, or filing advice. Rules, figures, and file listings change; confirm against the source before relying on them.
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