Regional and Northport are priced as one hospital — CMS records suggest that’s correct. Two-thirds of their rows are still missing a field CMS has required since April.
Measured from DCH Health System's own published price transparency files under 45 CFR Part 180.50 and 180.60, retrieved Sep 14, 2026, and cross-checked against CMS's public Provider of Services, Hospital Enrollments, and Price Transparency Enforcement datasets.
| Facility | Legal entity | Location | CCN | Type | Beds | Ownership | Medicare since |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCH Regional Medical Center | The DCH Healthcare Authority | Tuscaloosa, AL | 010092 | Acute | 787 | Governmental (county authority) — CMS control-type code 08 | — |
| “Northport Medical Center” (per cms-hpt.txt) | The DCH Healthcare Authority (psych/rehab units of DCH Regional, CCN 010092) | Northport, AL | 01S092 / 01T092 (subunits, not an independent hospital CCN) | Psych + Rehab unit | — | Same as DCH Regional | — |
| Fayette Medical Center | Fayette Medical Center | Fayette, AL | 010045 | Acute | 61 | CMS control-type code 03 (differs from DCH Regional's code 08) | — |
“Northport Medical Center” has no independent CMS hospital enrollment. CMS's Hospital Enrollments file shows only two entities at the Northport address, both subunits of DCH Regional's own CCN (010092): a psychiatric unit (01S092) and a rehabilitation unit (01T092). Fayette Medical Center carries its own CCN (010045) and, per Provider of Services, a different general-control-type code from DCH Regional — worth confirming whether it's under common ownership or a separately-owned facility DCH manages.
| Facility | Host domain | cms-hpt.txt | Filename | Schema | Last updated | HTTP last-mod | Type 2 NPI | Attester | Payers | Rows | Rows w/ rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCH Regional Medical Center | dchsystem.com | YES | combined (Regional+Northport) | 3.0.0 | 2026-03-26 | not exposed by host | YES | Brent Freeman | 17 | 701,854 | 701,854 |
| “Northport Medical Center” | dchsystem.com | YES | combined (Regional+Northport) | 3.0.0 | 2026-03-26 | not exposed by host | YES | Brent Freeman | 17 | 701,854 | 701,854 |
| Fayette Medical Center | dchsystem.com | YES | Fayette-specific | 3.0.0 | 2026-03-26 | not exposed by host | YES | Brent Freeman | 12 | 521,368 | 521,368 |
SHARE OF EACH FILE CARRYING A PAYER-SPECIFIC RATE
CY2026 percentile fields are populated for about a third of rows, consistently, at both files
The combined Regional/Northport file carries the required median_amount, 10th_percentile, and 90th_percentile columns (in force since 4/1/2026), but only 237,775 of 701,854 rows (34%) actually populate them. Fayette's file shows the same pattern: 182,186 of 521,368 rows (35%). The near-identical ratio across two separately-attested files suggests a systematic gap in the 835-derived percentile pipeline, not a one-off omission on either file.
Regional and Northport are one file, one estimator, and (per CMS) one hospital
The shared MRF file's own attestation names both DCH Regional Medical Center and DCH Northport Medical Center together, and the DCH site's own patient-facing estimator page groups them the same way (“Patient Financial Responsibility Estimator (Regional/Northport)”, separate from Fayette's own estimator link). CMS's Hospital Enrollments file backs that up: there is no independently-certified acute-care hospital in Northport, AL — only DCH Regional's own psychiatric and rehabilitation units, both filed under DCH Regional's CCN (010092). Read together, this looks like a correct, consistent representation of one hospital with a Northport campus, not a duplicate-file gap. The one open question: does anything patient- or referral-facing describe Northport as its own hospital rather than a DCH Regional unit? If so, that's worth a look; if not, this isn't a finding at all.
DCH Regional's certified bed count is manually overridden in CMS's own file
CMS's Provider of Services record for DCH Regional (CCN 010092) shows CRTFD_BED_CNT = 787 with OVRRD_BED_CNT_SW = Y — the figure was manually entered rather than system-calculated. Not necessarily wrong, but worth confirming 787 is the current number before it's used anywhere externally, since CMS's enforcement penalty tiers are calculated by bed count.
Every published row carries a real payer-specific rate
100% of the 701,854 rows in the Regional/Northport file and 100% of the 521,368 rows in the Fayette file carry a negotiated dollar, percentage, or algorithm-based rate across a combined 17 and 12 named payers respectively (Aetna, Alabama BCBS, Cigna, Humana, and others). The gap in this review is the percentile-field completeness above, not payer-rate coverage.
Is “Northport Medical Center” ever described to patients or referring providers as its own hospital, separate from DCH Regional?
If yes, the shared file and shared estimator undersell that distinction. If no (it's understood as a DCH Regional campus/unit), the current setup is exactly correct and this isn't a finding.
Why do only ~34-35% of rows carry the CY2026 percentile fields, consistently across both files?
A consistent ratio across two separately-attested files suggests a systematic gap in the 835-remittance pipeline feeding both files, not a one-off data-entry miss — which changes this from a quick fix to an ongoing data problem.
Is Fayette Medical Center under common ownership with DCH Regional, or a separately-owned facility DCH Health System manages?
CMS's Provider of Services file lists a different general-control-type code for Fayette than for DCH Regional. Changes who the actual commercial decision-maker is for a Fayette-specific conversation.
FLAGGED, NOT ASSERTED — COULD NOT BE VERIFIED FROM OUTSIDE THE ORGANIZATION