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Minimum Data Set Frequency

Metadata Updated: June 27, 2024

03/26/2024: An issue was identified with the Percent data contained in the Q1, 2020 - Q3, 2023 data files. Updated files containing the corrected data are now available.

The Minimum Data Set (MDS) Frequency data summarizes health status indicators for active residents currently in nursing homes. The MDS is part of the Federally-mandated process for clinical assessment of all residents in Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing homes. This process provides a comprehensive assessment of each resident's functional capabilities and helps nursing home staff identify health problems. Care Area Assessments (CAAs) are part of this process, and provide the foundation upon which a resident's individual care plan is formulated. MDS assessments are completed for all residents in certified nursing homes, regardless of source of payment for the individual resident. MDS assessments are required for residents on admission to the nursing facility, periodically, and on discharge. All assessments are completed within specific guidelines and time frames. In most cases, participants in the assessment process are licensed health care professionals employed by the nursing home. MDS information is transmitted electronically by nursing homes to the national MDS database at CMS.

When reviewing the MDS 3.0 Frequency files, some common software programs e.g., ‘Microsoft Excel’ might inaccurately strip leading zeros from designated code values (i.e., "01" becomes "1") or misinterpret code ranges as dates (i.e., O0600 ranges such as 02-04 are misread as 04-Feb). As each piece of software is unique, if you encounter an issue when reading the CSV file of Frequency data, please open the file in a plain text editor such as ‘Notepad’ or ‘TextPad’ to review the underlying data, before reaching out to CMS for assistance.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: See this page for license information.

Downloads & Resources

References

https://data.cms.gov/resources/minimum-data-set-frequency-methodology

Dates

Metadata Created Date August 22, 2023
Metadata Updated Date June 27, 2024
Data Update Frequency R/P3M

Metadata Source

Harvested from Healthdata.gov

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date August 22, 2023
Metadata Updated Date June 27, 2024
Publisher Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
Maintainer
Identifier https://data.cms.gov/data-api/v1/dataset/4b50bbe6-a496-4eda-b03b-5f835937f81b/data-viewer
Data First Published 2023-08-22
Language en-US
Data Last Modified 2024-04-11
Category Medicare, Medicaid
Public Access Level public
Data Update Frequency R/P3M
Bureau Code 009:38
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://healthdata.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Data Quality True
Data Dictionary https://data.cms.gov/resources/minimum-data-set-frequency-data-dictionary
Harvest Object Id de4cbd56-bf5e-4637-95c9-b2013782ba86
Harvest Source Id 651e43b2-321c-4e4c-b86a-835cfc342cb0
Harvest Source Title Healthdata.gov
Homepage URL https://data.cms.gov/quality-of-care/minimum-data-set-frequency
License https://www.usa.gov/government-works
Program Code 009:000
Related Documents https://data.cms.gov/resources/minimum-data-set-frequency-methodology
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash df423247e39dd1230379b7602bd3b92863dd65d22a912eedf9e65fec286c6ccb
Source Schema Version 1.1
Temporal 2020-01-01/2024-03-31

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