Medicare Dialysis Facility Clinical and Patient Measures 2020-2023

Fiscal Year 2025 data covers measures from January 2020 to December 2023 for Medicare-certified End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) dialysis facilities. The dataset, compiled by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services using the UM-KECC ESRD patient database, contains facility-, regional-, state-, and network-level summaries on patient characteristics, treatment, hospitalization, mortality, and transplantation patterns. Data files are restricted to facilities with at least 11 patients in the fiscal year.

Use Cases

• Analyze facility-level Standardized Mortality Ratios (SMRs) and Standardized Hospitalization Ratios (SHRs) to benchmark clinical outcomes across dialysis facilities.
• Model patient characteristics and treatment patterns to identify factors influencing transplantation rates and hospitalization events.
• Compare regional-level summaries of mortality and readmission patterns to assess geographic disparities in ESRD care quality.
• Investigate the relationship between patient-years at risk and suppressed statistics for emergency department encounter ratios (SEDR) to understand data reporting thresholds.

Strengths

• Data covers a four-year period from January 2020 to December 2023, providing a multi-year view of facility performance.
• Derived from authoritative sources including CMS's ESRD Quality Reporting System (EQRS) and Medicare claims, ensuring high provenance.
• Includes multiple aggregation levels (facility, regional, state, network) for analyses at different geographic scopes.
• Applies specific statistical suppression rules (e.g., for facilities with fewer than 3 expected deaths) to protect data reliability.

Limitations

• Key summary statistics are suppressed for facilities with small patient counts (e.g., <11 patients, <3 expected deaths), limiting analysis for smaller facilities.
• The dataset description notes that one long-format file contains more records than most spreadsheet programs can handle, requiring specialized software for full access.
• Specific row counts, column details, and file sizes are not provided, making initial data assessment difficult.

Provenance

Source

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), compiled using the University of Michigan Kidney Epidemiology and Cost Center (UM-KECC) End Stage-Renal Disease (ESRD) patient database.

Collection Method

Data is largely derived from the CMS ESRD Quality Reporting System (EQRS), Medicare claims, and other data collected for CMS.

Time Range

January 2020 to December 2023 (Fiscal Year 2025 dataset).

Freshness

Data was last updated on the platform on February 23, 2026, and covers measures through December 2023.

Geography

United States, covering all Medicare-certified dialysis facilities.