In November, in accordance with the Biden administration’s executive order on competition, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published the Hospital Owners Information dataset (the Dataset). The Dataset is aimed at making transparent the ownership structure of Medicare-certified hospitals.

The Dataset contains the following information about the more than 7,000 hospitals:

• Organization name, type and practice location;
• National Provider Identifier;
• CMS Certification Number;
• Detailed information about each owner, such as whether it is an organization or an individual and whether it is a direct owner or indirect owner; and
• Numerical associate ID for each owner.

The information is searchable, downloadable, and can be filtered.

This release of ownership information follows on other transparency measures taken by HHS this past year, including:

• Data and a report on mergers, acquisitions, consolidations, and changes of ownership from 2016-2022 for hospitals and nursing homes enrolled in Medicare; and
• Ownership information of all Medicare-certified nursing homes.

We will continue to see the trend in transparency continue on in 2023, flooding the healthcare market with data. Will it make a difference in reducing healthcare costs? Only time will tell.