Better Medicare Cost Report data are needed to help hospitals benchmark costs and performance

To evaluate costs and achieve cost control in the face of new technology an d demands for efficiently from both managed care and governmental payers, h ospitals need to benchmark their costs against those of other comparable ho spitals. Since they typically use Medicare Cost Report (MCR) data for this purpose, a variety of cost accounting problems with the MCR may hamper hosp itals' understanding of their relative costs and performance. Managers and researchers alike need to investigate the validity, accuracy, and timelines s. of the MCR's cost accounting data.