What years of MDS data are available from CMS?
MDS data from CMS is available starting in October 1998 through present. There is approximately a 3-month delay until the MDS data is available for research. The earliest data will have more mistakes in the data because of a learning curve so CMS recommends using data after October 1998. Facilities have a month to transmit data to their State but they are frequently late. Generally CMS extracts data from the State database to their National database for target dates after 2-3 months.
