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CMS Care Compare — IRFCMS Care Compare — IRF General Information (data-only)
U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services · Tier-1 · research-only (never on individual profiles)
Data-only treatment: identity + ownership + certification_date for 1,221 Medicare-certified Inpatient Rehabilitation Facilities (close to the ~1,200 estimated nationally). IRF CCN is distinct from acute hospital CCN even when the IRF operates inside a hospital. Care Compare IRF IS the identity backbone (POS QIES PRVDR_CTGRY_CD=22 absent). Quality measures in companion datasets v9e4-nwhh + ka5z-ibe3 — deferred.
How this source shows up on Fonteum.
Audit-pack export coverage; IRF CCN distinction is relevant for supported cross-source joins.
What this source does NOT mean
Not a directory page. IRF QRP measure overlap with hospital measures requires careful join-key handling.
Research and data questions this source supports.
- Build an inpatient rehabilitation facility directory for a post-acute referral planning application.
- Identify IRFs by state and ownership type to support a market analysis of the post-acute rehabilitation sector.
- Cross-reference IRF CCNs with HCRIS to join quality and financial data for M&A research on rehabilitation hospital targets.
- Support a health equity study on IRF access density by county and insurance coverage type.
- Enumerate IRF bed capacity by region for a post-acute care capacity modeling exercise.
Dataset size: ~1,100–1,200 certified IRFs
Per-field display contract.
Fields listed below show their configured `display_allowed` flag from the §94 provenance schema. Fields marked write-locked are captured for audit and are not rendered on profile pages.
Write-locked — captured to provenance, not displayed
4 fieldsWhat we can’t infer from this source.
- Data-only treatment; not surfaced on a brand-hub page.
- IRF CCN distinct from acute hospital CCN even for hospital-based IRFs.
- IRF QRP quality measures deferred (companion datasets v9e4-nwhh + ka5z-ibe3).
Authority, license, publisher cadence.
Authority
U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Tier
Tier-1 · research-only (never on individual profiles)
Publisher / configured cadence
Declared or configured cadence: Quarterly aligned to IRF QRP cycle. Not evidence of the latest loaded source date.
License
U.S. government public-domain works (17 U.S.C. § 105). Attribution: 'Source: CMS Care Compare · IRF General Information (7t8x-u3ir) · Snapshot {YYYY-MM-DD}'. License ↗
Official URL
Attribution requirement
Source: CMS Care Compare · IRF General Information (7t8x-u3ir) · Last checked {YYYY-MM-DD}
What the source allows.
U.S. government public-domain works. Data-only.
What a single field looks like in the graph.
This worked example shows the provenance shape used when a surfaced field has populated source, last-checked, display-rule, and confidence metadata. Individual fields may omit unavailable values.
Field
IRF count (snapshot 2026-05-07)
Sample value
1,221 Inpatient Rehabilitation Facilities across 52 states + territories
Provenance line
Source: CMS Care Compare · IRF General Information (7t8x-u3ir) · Snapshot 2026-05-07 · Display rule: audit-pack-only
Official API, bulk download, and Fonteum endpoints.
Official API / download
Fonteum surface
Common questions about CMS Care Compare — IRF.
- What is an Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility (IRF)?
- An Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility (IRF) is a Medicare-certified hospital or hospital unit specializing in intensive inpatient rehabilitation for patients recovering from stroke, orthopedic surgery, traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, and other conditions requiring 3 or more hours of daily therapy. IRFs must meet CMS's 60% Rule — at least 60% of patients must have one of 13 qualifying conditions.
- What quality measures does CMS report for IRFs?
- CMS Care Compare reports IRF quality measures including: discharge-to-community rate, potentially preventable readmission rate within 30 days, functional outcome measures (improvement in self-care, mobility), and Medicare spending per beneficiary. The measure set is defined in the IRF Quality Reporting Program (IRF QRP).
- How does an IRF differ from a skilled nursing facility for rehab?
- IRFs provide intensive inpatient rehabilitation (3+ hours of therapy per day) for medically complex patients. SNFs provide sub-acute rehabilitation at lower intensity and lower cost. Medicare Part A covers both; the IRF Prospective Payment System pays at a higher rate per discharge reflecting the higher acuity patient. Not all patients qualify for IRF-level care under CMS criteria.
- Where can I download the CMS IRF data?
- CMS publishes the IRF General Information and Quality Reporting Program data at data.cms.gov/provider-data. Multiple files cover different measure domains. All files are U.S. government public-domain data available as CSV downloads at no cost.
- How many IRFs operate in the United States?
- There are approximately 1,100–1,200 Medicare-certified inpatient rehabilitation facilities and units operating in the United States, including freestanding IRF hospitals and IRF units within acute care hospitals. Fonteum uses the CMS POS file as the CCN identity backbone for all IRF cross-source joins.
Where this source already shows up.
Related sources in the graph
- /sources → The generated source-catalog subset — documented datasets Fonteum cites.
- /data-provenance → The provider graph — pipeline diagram, source-family clusters, field-level provenance examples, display rules.
- /methodology → Documented sourcing, publisher cadence, observed freshness, and corrections policy.
- /editorial-policy → Independence, sourcing, conflicts, corrections, retractions.