A CCN (CMS Certification Number) is the identifier Medicare assigns to a healthcare facility when it is certified to participate in the program. It keys facilities across CMS surveys, cost reports, and quality data — the CMS Provider of Services file alone holds 44,429 CCN-keyed facility records. A CCN identifies a facility; an NPI identifies a provider.
What a CMS Certification Number is
When a facility — a hospital, skilled nursing facility, hospice, dialysis center, or home health agency — is certified to take part in Medicare, CMS assigns it a CMS Certification Number. The CCN is how CMS tracks that facility through certification, on-site surveys, cost-report filings, enforcement actions, and the public quality datasets.
The code is typically six characters. The first two digits encode the facility's state; the remaining characters carry the facility type and a sequence number, with specific numeric ranges reserved for hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, and other provider categories.
CCN vs. NPI
~6 characters. Assigned by CMS at certification. Keys facility-level survey, cost-report, and quality data. State-coded in the first two digits.
10 digits. Assigned through NPPES. The universal identifier in HIPAA transactions for any individual or organizational provider.
A facility typically holds both. The National Provider Identifier explainer covers the NPI side; this page covers the certification side.
Other names you will see for the CCN
Older CMS files and references use these names interchangeably. They all point to the same facility identifier now standardized as the CCN.
CCN as the facility join key
The CCN is the backbone that links a facility across every CMS dataset. Figures below are aggregate, each from a named CMS file.
Those five Care Compare families: 14,699 nursing homes, 5,426 hospitals, 12,392 home health agencies, 6,943 hospices, and 7,557 dialysis facilities — each keyed on its CCN.
Finding a facility's CCN
CMS publishes facility quality and survey data keyed on the CCN, and the number appears on a facility's Care Compare record. Fonteum organizes Medicare-certified facilities by type and state, with each field stamped with its CMS source and snapshot date.
Browse certified facilities
Every Medicare-certified facility type — nursing homes, hospitals, hospices, dialysis centers, home health agencies — organized by state, each record traced to its CMS source.
Care Compare hub →Frequently asked questions
- What is a CCN (CMS Certification Number)?
- A CCN is the identifier the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services assigns to a healthcare facility when it is certified to participate in Medicare. It identifies the facility — a hospital, nursing home, hospice, dialysis center, or home health agency — across CMS systems, surveys, cost reports, and quality datasets.
- How many digits is a CCN?
- A CCN is typically a 6-character code. The first two digits identify the state; the remaining characters encode the facility type and a sequence number, with certain ranges reserved for specific provider categories such as hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and home health agencies.
- What is the difference between a CCN and an NPI?
- A CCN identifies a certified facility to Medicare for certification, survey, and payment purposes. An NPI is the universal 10-digit identifier for any provider or organization in HIPAA transactions. A single facility usually has both: an NPI for billing and a CCN for Medicare certification. The two are linked but assigned by different systems.
- Is a CCN the same as the Medicare provider number or OSCAR number?
- Effectively yes. The CCN replaced the older OSCAR (Online Survey, Certification, and Reporting) number and the Medicare Provider Number. Many CMS files and older references still call it the provider number or OSCAR number, but they refer to the same facility identifier now standardized as the CMS Certification Number.
- Which facilities have a CCN?
- Medicare-certified facilities of every type carry a CCN: hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, hospices, dialysis centers, home health agencies, ambulatory surgical centers, and more. The CMS Provider of Services file holds 44,429 facility records keyed this way, 26,250 of them active.
- How can I look up a facility by its CCN?
- CMS publishes facility data — quality ratings, survey deficiencies, cost reports — keyed on the CCN. Fonteum's Care Compare hub organizes Medicare-certified facilities by type and state, with each facility's record traced to its CMS source and snapshot date so any figure can be checked against the federal release.
Related
- Care Compare facility hub — every Medicare-certified facility type by state, keyed on the CCN.
- The National Provider Identifier explained — the provider-level identifier that complements the facility CCN.
- What a skilled nursing facility is — one of the facility types a CCN identifies.
- CCN glossary entry — the quick-reference definition and related terms.
- NPI lookup tool — search providers and organizations by NPI or name.