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Outpatient utilization · Reference

Per-CCN per-APC per-HCPCS outpatient utilization, free + open. Sister dataset to Inpatient.

Fonteum ingests the CMS Medicare Outpatient Hospitals by Provider and Service file on the daily HEAD-probe pattern, with full ingestion firing on each annual mid-June release. ~85M rows per data year. Together with Inpatient, forms the complete Definitive Hospital Performance buyer-displacement surface.

Try the API → Inpatient sister dataset → Data catalog →

1. What this dataset is

Per-CCN per-APC per-HCPCS Medicare outpatient service + payment aggregates.

CMS publishes the “Medicare Outpatient Hospitals by Provider and Service” file annually each mid-June. One row per (CCN, APC code, HCPCS code, data year). Each row carries the count of services, distinct beneficiaries served, average submitted charges, and average Medicare payment amount. Coverage extends back to data year 2018 in the current schema.

APC = Ambulatory Payment Classification (the outpatient analogue to inpatient’s MS-DRG). HCPCS = Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System code. The (APC, HCPCS) pair lets payers + analysts join utilization back to service category + procedure detail at row level.

2. What this dataset is NOT

No PHI. No claims. No patient records.

Same suppression rules as Inpatient:

  • NO patient identifiers — no names, no addresses, no dates of birth.
  • NO claim-level rows — only annual rollups per (CCN, APC, HCPCS).
  • NO service dates — just the data year.
  • NO cells with service counts under 11 — CMS pre-suppresses these per its privacy policy.

Provider-name and provider-address columns dropped at parse time (CMS POS holds the canonical metadata; dual-storage would create drift).

3. Refresh schedule

Daily HEAD probe at 06:00 UTC. Full ingest on annual mid-June release.

Same cron pattern as Inpatient (0 6 * * *). HEAD probe short-circuits via the UNIQUE(source_id, snapshot_date) constraint between annual releases.

4. How it joins to other sources

CCN bridges to POS, Care Compare, and the Inpatient sister table.

Same CCN bridge as Inpatient. Researchers comparing inpatient + outpatient utilization for the same facility join the two tables on (ccn, data_year). The federated identity layer at /identity documents the canonical CCN ↔ NPPES NPI ↔ ownership-chain links.

5. The API

GET /api/v1/utilization/outpatient/[ccn]

Returns the top-10 (APC, HCPCS) pairs by service count for the given CCN, with the full 14-tuple provenance contract attached inline. Same auth + tier handling as the inpatient endpoint.

{
  "data": {
    "ccn": "010001",
    "data_year": 2022,
    "top_apcs": [
      {
        "apc_code": "0019",
        "apc_description": "Level 1 Excision/Biopsy/Incision",
        "hcpcs_code": "99214",
        "total_services": 1245,
        "total_beneficiaries": 812,
        "avg_total_submitted_charges": 560,
        "avg_medicare_payment_amt": 138,
        "data_year": 2022
      }
    ],
    "provenance": {
      "_source": "CMS Medicare Outpatient Hospitals by Provider and Service",
      "_dataset_id": "cms-outpatient-utilization",
      "_snapshot": "2022-12-31",
      "_methodology": "v2026.05.0",
      "_license": "US-Government-Works",
      "_coverage_period_start": "2018-01-01",
      "_coverage_period_end": "ongoing"
    }
  },
  "meta": { "request_id": "req_...", "api_version": "v1", "...": "..." }
}
6. License + redistribution

US-Government-Works. Anyone can redistribute.

Same license posture as Inpatient — federal-government work, public domain in the U.S. under 17 U.S.C. §105 + Open Government Data Act. SPDX US-Government-Works.

7. How to cite

APA-ish, with the upstream CMS source named.

Fonteum. (2026). CMS Medicare Outpatient
Hospitals by Provider and Service [data set]. https://fonteum.com/docs/utilization-outpatient.
Retrieved [date]. Original source: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid
Services. License: US-Government-Works.
8. Verify the snapshot

SHA-256 attestation + S3 cache mirror.

Same attestation chain as Inpatient. Use /verify + /chain to walk the cryptographic chain for any snapshot.

Built on the authoritative federal record

The primary sources, named on every page.

These are the federal agencies whose public datasets Fonteum ingests and attributes — the issuing authorities, not customers or partners. Every figure on the site links back to one of them.

  • CMS
  • HHS-OIG
  • HRSA
  • FDA
  • NLM
  • NUCC
  • Census
  • BLS
  • BEA

See the full source registry, with license and refresh cadence for each →

Reproducible by design

Every figure traces to its federal source.

14-tuple provenance

Every rendered fact ties to a source URL, dataset ID, snapshot date, row key, and SHA-256 — the full chain-of-custody record.

Reproducible SQL

Each study ships the exact query behind its figures, run against the cited federal snapshot. Re-run it yourself.

Daily reconciliation

Published counts are reconciled against the upstream federal datasets on a daily cadence, with drift logged.

Named medical review

Reviewed by Jennifer Montecillo, MD, medical reviewer. Non-practicing medical reviewer.

Read the full provenance and attestation methodology →

Two doors

Use the free API and open data

Query providers, facilities, sanctions, and quality scores — each field carrying its federal source. Self-serve, no call to start.

Explore the API →Browse the data catalog →

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Reviewed by Jennifer Montecillo, MD, medical reviewer. Non-practicing medical reviewer.

© 2026 Fonteum LLC. All rights reserved.

The U.S. healthcare graph AI can cite — every fact carries its source.

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The substrate, by the numbers

44federal source familiesDistinct CMS, OIG, HRSA, FDA and peer datasets
35dataset pagesCitable, downloadable /data catalog pages
52reproducible studiesEach shipping the SQL behind its figures