Oncology Care Model (OCM) Data Now Available

CMS is pleased to announce the availability of a set of Research Identifiable Files (RIFs) from the CMS Innovation Center's Oncology Care Model (OCM).

OCM operated from July 2016-June 2022 and aimed to provide higher quality, coordinated oncology care at the same or lower cost to Medicare. Under OCM, physician practices entered into payment arrangements with CMS that included financial and performance accountability for episodes of care surrounding chemotherapy administration to cancer patients. The practices which participated in OCM committed to providing enhanced services to Medicare beneficiaries such as care coordination, navigation, and adherence to national treatment guidelines for care.

OCM participants submitted staging and clinical data to the OCM Data Registry, a web-based data submission and collection tool, for their attributed episodes. CMS is releasing two files, which are both provided for a research request (i.e., cannot by requested separately):

  • The Clinical and Staging file contains practice-reported staging and clinical data, which includes basic information on the episodes attributed to model participants.
  • The Current Clinical Status file contains practice-reported, cancer-specific clinical and staging patient status values.

Each file contains data for the third through eleventh model performance periods, including episodes initiating from July 2017 through December 2021. The first two model performance periods, including episodes initiating from July 1, 2016 through July 1, 2017, are not available for release at this time. Files are not partitioned by calendar year, and this is the only release of the Oncology Care Model clinical data.

For more information on the Oncology Care Model or the data release, visit the CMS Innovation Center website or see the CCW user guide.