Making The Healthcare System More Transparent
Through data journalism, open data, and research.
We make Medicare and Medicaid claims data accessible to
researchers, journalists, and policy organizations advancing
healthcare transparency.
Two Paths Into The Data
For Non-Commercial Researchers
We make Medicare and Medicaid claims data accessible to researchers, journalists, and policy organizations advancing healthcare transparency.
How to access our data
- Use our public use files independently: DocGraph and additional public use files are available free for research and non-commercial use.
- Collaborate with our team: We help interpret and analyze existing data products for your research hypothesis.
- Custom research project: Investigate your questions through direct access to Medicare and Medicaid claims via our CMS VRDC Innovator access.
Research areas we support
HEOR
Drug utilization and spending
Treatment sequencing
Site-of-care patterns
Referral networks
Biosimilar adoption
Patient pathways
Published research using our data
Peer-reviewed publications include Health Services Research, BMJ Open, Medical Care, and Urban Institute policy analysis.
Start your research projectFor Journalists
Investigate healthcare stories using real claims data. Uncover fraud, waste, and abuse. Track policy impact. Find leads no other data source can provide.
How to access our data
- Use our public use files for your story: DocGraph and other open datasets are freely available to journalists.
- Collaborate with our team: We help analyze data and interpret findings for your investigation.
- Custom journalism project: Investigate your story through direct access to complete Medicare and Medicaid claims.
Stories you can uncover
Fraud, waste, and abuse
Wait-time disparities
Prescribing trends
Network and access gaps
Policy impact
Specialty drug pricing
Published investigations using our data
ProPublica, The Wall Street Journal, and US News have published investigations based on CareSet analysis.
Discuss your storyOur Public Use Files
Our public use file program makes selected datasets freely available for non-commercial research and journalism, at no cost. DocGraph is available to download today, and the library is growing.
Medicare referral network data.
Physician-to-physician referral patterns, drawn from Medicare claims. Map provider networks, find the gaps, and follow referrals as they move.
- Physician-level referral relationships
- Network structure analysis
- Geographic coverage
- Released annually since 2014
Custom research and journalism
25+
years
years of longitudinal claims data.
Need access to complete claims data? As a CMS VRDC Innovator access holder, CareSet provides it for custom research and journalism projects.
The DocGraph Hop Teaming dataset contains the following data fields:
- FROM_NPI
- The provider first in the referral sequence, identified by National Provider Identifier (NPI).
- TO_NPI
- The provider second in the referral sequence, identified by NPI.
- PATIENT_COUNT
- The total number of patients shared between the two providers over the measured time period, typically one year.
- TRANSACTION_COUNT
- The number of times a patient moved between the two providers in the from-to direction during the period.
- AVERAGE_DAY_WAIT
- The average number of days between a patient's encounter with the first provider and their encounter with the second.
- STD_DAY_WAIT
- The standard deviation of days between encounters, a measure of consistency in the referral pathway.
- NPI
- The National Provider Identifier, assigned to every provider billing for services in the U.S.
From FOIA Requests to Medicare Intelligence
VRDC access
We have a Data Use Agreement (DUA) from CMS with VRDC access and use 100% Medicare RIF files to provide de-identified datasets to researchers and journalists.
Federal Collaborations
Our co-founders and team members have contributed to White House health initiatives, including the Cancer Moonshot and COVID task force data work.
Open Data Leadership
We participate in CMS open data initiatives and VRDC user groups, and advocate for improved healthcare data access.
Peer-Reviewed Record
Research using our data appears in Health Services Research, BMJ Open, Medical Care, and policy publications from leading institutions.
Ready To Use Medicare Data For Your Work?
Download Public Use Files
DocGraph is available for non-commercial use. For commercial use, please complete the request form.
Browse datasets›Discuss a research or journalism project
Tell us about your hypothesis or story. We will help you determine the right data approach.
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