Cms Gov CMS Provider Data API

Where is the official CMS Provider Data OpenAPI specification?

CMS serves it from the API root itself: request https://data.cms.gov/provider-data/api/1 with an Accept: application/json header and you get an OpenAPI 3.0.2 document covering 22 paths and 33 operations. The Provider Data Catalog's own API Documentation page renders the same document, loading the https://data.cms.gov/provider-data/api/1?authentication=false projection of it, which lists the 18 operations that need no credentials. The spec behind this page is a Jentic-authored 25-operation subset of the CMS document, not a copy of it.

Can I query Medicare hospital quality measures with the CMS Provider Data API?

Yes. Search the dataset catalog with GET /search for terms such as 'hospital general information' or 'readmission', then call /datastore/query/{distributionId} with the returned identifier and conditions on facility ID or state to retrieve quality measures. The Hospital General Information distribution alone returns 5,432 facility rows with fields including hospital_type, hospital_ownership and hospital_overall_rating.

What are the rate limits for the CMS Provider Data API?

The CMS specification declares no rate limit and no 429 response, and CMS publishes no request-rate policy for this API. What it does publish is a row-limit warning: a 500 response to a query is most likely memory exhaustion, calls time out if the limit is set too high, and complex queries should use a smaller limit value with the limit and offset parameters to page through result sets. For bulk extracts use /datastore/query/{distributionId}/download, which returns CSV directly.

How do I run a SQL-style query against the CMS datastore?

Call GET /datastore/sql with a query built from the DKAN bracketed dialect over a distribution UUID rather than a table name, for example query=[SELECT * FROM b0a92ff7-a457-54f9-b247-20022db14590][LIMIT 2]. An empty query is rejected with 400. Through Jentic, search for 'query CMS data', load the GET /datastore/sql operation schema, and execute it: the parameter shape comes from the spec, so the agent does not have to learn the dialect from the docs first.

Is the data returned by this API redistributable?

CMS states that works of the U.S. Government are in the public domain and that you do not need permission to reuse them, so results from /datastore/query and /datastore/query/{distributionId}/download can be cached and republished. CMS asks for two things in return: attribution to the agency as the source, and that your materials do not give the false impression that the government endorses your commercial products or services.

Is there a CMS Provider Data MCP server?

You do not need an MCP server to give your agent CMS provider data. Jentic connects it directly from the API Directory: import it and, because the read surface takes no credentials, your agent can start calling it right away, with no extra server's tool definitions loaded into its context.

Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the CMS Provider Data API?

Yes. Say an agent only needs to answer questions about provider quality: allow GET /search, GET /search/facets, GET /datastore/query/{distributionId} and GET /datastore/sql, and leave the datastore import and metastore write operations out of the allowed set. The agent can then search and read but cannot start an import or edit a dataset record, and you can widen the set later if the task grows.