For months, the Empire Center for Public Policy has been trying to discover how many patients from nursing homes died in New York state after being transferred to hospitals.

In August, the organization sent a Freedom of Information Law request to the Department of Health. Four weeks later, the DOH said it would respond to the request no sooner than November 5, "Because a diligent search for relevant documents is still being conducted."

After the Empire Center filed an appeal, which was denied, it sued the Department of Health.  

According to Bill Hammond, Senior Fellow for Health Policy at the Empire Center, it’s likely the Cuomo administration has the information in question.

"We have a copy of the questionnaire that nursing homes are given to fill out on a daily basis," Hammond told Capital Tonight. "It asks about deaths both inside the facility and outside the facility on the same form."

Hammond believes the information from that questionnaire is kept in a database called HERDS, Hospital Emergency Response Data System. 

"They are sharing answers to two questions that are on the questionnaire, but not the answer to a third question," he said.

That third question asks how many residents died outside the facility.

When asked why he believes the Cuomo administration won’t relinquish the data, Hammond says he cannot know for sure.

"But I think it’s pretty clear that they have stood really firm on the idea that their nursing home performance is actually better than most other states. That claim rests on the current count of deaths that they’ve been using, which is considerably lower than the real count," Hammond explained. "So, if they were to adjust that number, the comparison they would be making with other states would go out the window, and they would rank considerably lower."