CMS data.gov MCP Server

Community MCP server that gives Claude direct access to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) public data catalog at data.cms.gov — provider enrollment, hospital quality metrics, spending, and other datasets — for healthcare analytics workflows.


Type	MCP server
Supplier	Clarify Health
Availability	GA — published as `@clarify/cms-datagov-mcp-server`
Pricing	Free / OSS (MIT). No API key — data.cms.gov is public
Capabilities	Read-only — dataset search, filtered queries (≤ 5,000 rows), and CSV export links
Verified	works · 2026-07-27 — repo resolves; package.json bin cms-datagov-mcp-server confirms the launch
Security	caution · 2026-07-27 — provenance matches clarifyhealth, MIT, no OSV advisories, single-maintainer + stale (2025-12)

How to install

This server runs over stdio, so Claude Code / Claude Desktop launch the process themselves — there is no long-lived service to keep running. It is distributed from source (not published as a directly-runnable npm bin), so clone and build first.

Clone and build (Node.js 18+):
```
git clone https://github.com/clarifyhealth/cms-datagov-mcp-server
cd cms-datagov-mcp-server
npm install
npm run build
npm link
```
(npm link puts the cms-datagov-mcp-server binary on your PATH; alternatively skip npm link and reference the built entry point at $(pwd)/build/index.js in the snippets below — replace $(pwd) with the absolute path of your clone.)
Claude Code — register the linked binary:
```
claude mcp add --transport stdio cms-datagov -- cms-datagov-mcp-server
```
(If you did not run npm link, use claude mcp add --transport stdio cms-datagov -- node /path/to/cms-datagov-mcp-server/build/index.js, replacing /path/to/… with the absolute path of your clone — e.g., $(pwd)/build/index.js if you’re still inside it from the build step.)
Claude Desktop — add to claude_desktop_config.json:
```
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cms-datagov": {
      "command": "cms-datagov-mcp-server",
      "args": [],
      "env": {}
    }
  }
}
```
(If you did not run npm link, set "command": "node" and "args": ["/path/to/cms-datagov-mcp-server/build/index.js"] with the absolute path of your clone.) Restart Claude Desktop after editing the config.

What it does

Exposes five tools plus resource templates over the data.cms.gov API (https://data.cms.gov/data-api/v1):

cms_search_datasets — find CMS datasets by keyword.
cms_get_dataset — detailed dataset metadata.
cms_query_dataset — query a dataset with filters (up to 5,000 rows).
cms_get_dataset_stats — row counts and column info.
cms_get_csv_link — CSV download URL for bulk export.

Resource templates cms://datasets, cms://dataset/{id}, and cms://csv/{id} let Claude browse the catalog and pull dataset metadata or export links directly.

Primary use cases: Provider-enrollment and hospital-quality analysis, CMS dataset discovery, healthcare-analytics data pulls (e.g., joint-replacement / LEJR cohorts), CSV export for downstream tooling.

Notes

stdio transport; public data, no authentication. Query results are capped at 5,000 rows per call — use cms_get_csv_link for bulk export. Community single-maintainer package — review the source before use.

Distinct from the Anthropic CMS Coverage MCP, which serves Medicare coverage-policy documents (Local and National Coverage Determinations) for prior-auth and appeals; this server serves the broader data.cms.gov statistical datasets (provider, quality, spending).

Sources

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