In early September, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released Care Compare on Medicare.gov, which streamlines our eight original health care compare tools.  Since then, you’ve had the opportunity to use and familiarize yourself with Care Compare while having the option to use the original compare tools, too.  You’ve also been able to share feedback from a survey directly on Care Compare and we’ve received lots of great feedback so far.

The eight original compare tools – like Nursing Home Compare, Hospital Compare, Physician Compare – will be retired on December 1^st, ending this transition period. If you haven’t been using Care Compare, we urge you to:

• Use Care Compare on Medicare.gov and encourage people with Medicare and their caregivers to start using it, too. Go to Medicare.gov and choose “Find care”.
• Update any links to the eight original care tools on your public-facing websites so they’ll direct your audiences to Care Compare.

Care Compare offers a new design that makes it easier to find the same information that’s on the original compare tools. It gives you, patients, and caregivers one user-friendly place to find cost, quality of care, service volume, and other CMS quality data to help make informed health care decisions.

Now, instead of having to search through many compare tools, with just one click on Care Compare, you’ll find easy-to-understand information about nursing homes, hospitals, doctors, and other health care providers.

Please remember that when we retire the 8 original compare tools, you will still be able to find information about health care providers and CMS quality data on Care Compare, as well as download CMS publicly reported data from the Provider Data Catalog on CMS.gov.  Fully transitioning to these tools does not change how CMS measures quality. In addition, we’ll continue to make improvements to Care Compare and the Provider Data Catalog based on stakeholder and consumer feedback now and in the future.

Direct links to the tools & additional resources

Care Compare on Medicare.gov – https://www.medicare.gov/care-compare/

Provider Data Catalog on CMS.gov – https://data.cms.gov/provider-data/

Care Compare resources for consumers and partners – Medicare blog, Promotional video, Conference card

Full Press Release: https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/cms-care-compare-empowers-patients-when-making-important-health-care-decisions