Methods

What “estimate” means here

A number labeled “estimate” applies CMS’s published method to CMS’s public data, in a case where an input CMS used is not public.

The result is close to CMS’s but not exact, and the page says how close: the largest difference this site found between its recomputation and the values CMS published.

An estimate is never a made-up number, and it is never presented as CMS’s own. CMS’s published values are always shown as CMS published them.

How the counts differ

In FY2026, CMS cut 719 hospitals under the hospital-acquired conditions program. CMS gave 718 of them a Total HAC Score, and the program’s own pages here count those, among the 2,886 scored hospitals with a payment decision.

This site estimates dollars for 2,971 hospitals: every hospital in that program’s file except Maryland’s 43, paid under the state’s own all-payer model, and 41 with no usable row in CMS’s payment file. So 709 of the 718 scored hospitals CMS cut have an estimate here.

The front page’s charts and totals add up all 2,971 hospitals with an estimate. The hospital-acquired conditions pages add up the 2,871 of them that program scored, so a program’s total can differ slightly between the two.

Hospitals as CMS listed them

Every figure is for a hospital’s CCN, its Medicare provider number, as CMS listed it in that year’s files. A hospital that has since closed or merged keeps the figures CMS’s files gave its CCN for that year.