The Trump administration for the first time will be releasing data about two of its healthcare programs covering seniors, children, low-income adults, and people with disabilities.
The initiative, part of what the administration is calling “MyHealthEData,” was announced Thursday by Seema Verma, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Later this year, CMS will release data on Medicare Advantage, which will show the medical services that roughly 19 million people received in 2015 when they were enrolled in the program managed by private health insurance plans. Similar data is already available through Medicare’s fee for service program.
“We recognize that the MA data is not perfect, but we have determined that the quality of the available MA data is adequate enough to support research,” Verma said during the Health Datapalooza conference in Washington, D.C. “And although this is our first release, going forward, we plan to make this data available annually. And we’re not stopping with MA data.”
The agency said it hoped that making the data available would help improve innovation and competition in the healthcare system and inform decisions that doctors and their patients make. The data will show what providers were involved, when patients received care, and what the diagnosis was. It would cover different categories of medical care, including inpatient, outpatient, home health, and those provided at a skilled nursing facility.
Next year CMS will also release data from Medicaid, which covers low-income adults, pregnant women, and people with disabilities, as well as from the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The data encompasses more than 70 million people.
Verma stressed during her speech that the information would not personally identify patients and that it would be posted in a secure way.
“As we’re all aware, the privacy and security of our data has recently become a universal concern, and necessary protections must be a priority, not overlooked, ignored, or disregarded,” she said.
Researchers will be able to request the data online with a research proposal.
