Research note on 'An easier method to extract data from large databases: The Medicare Hospital cost report database'

This research note is to provide updated information related to the article "An Easier Method to Extract Data From Large Databases: The Medicare Hospital Cost Report Database," by Cutting, Goldberg, & Jervis (2007) that appeared in RESEARCH IN HEALTHCARE FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, Volume 11, No. 1, pages 27-34. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) used to offer all hospital cost reports from 1996 through the current year in one download containing approximately six gigabytes of data. Now, CMS offers Medicare cost reports as annual, federal fiscal year files, which has reduced the size of the files considerably. This allows researchers to use a wide variety of software programs to manipulate the data, without the need to split the files them into smaller subsets.