CMS NEWS: Medicare dashboard advances ACA goals for chronic conditions

Data tool helps identify opportunities to improve care for beneficiaries with multiple chronic conditions A new Medicare Chronic Conditions Dashboard announced today by Marilyn Tavenner, Acting Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), furthers the Affordable Care Act’s goals for health promotion and the prevention and management of multiple chronic conditions. The dashboard offers researchers, physicians, public health professionals, and policymakers an easy-to-use tool to get current data on where multiple chronic conditions occur, which services they require, and how much Medicare spends helping beneficiaries with multiple chronic conditions. “More than two-thirds of Medicare beneficiaries have multiple chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes, and that number will rise with an aging population,” said Acting Administrator Tavenner. “The Affordable Care Act addresses these health problems by making people with Medicare eligible for recommended preventive care without Part B deductibles or copayments. The health care law also promotes better health care coordination and management of chronic conditions through analysis of current data.” The dashboard is part of the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Initiative on Multiple Chronic Conditions, established in 2009. The Multiple Chronic Conditions: A Strategic Framework was developed to serve as a national roadmap for HHS as well as public and private stakeholders to use to coordinate and improve the health of beneficiaries with multiple chronic conditions. “The Dashboard is a major step forward to help people living with multiple chronic conditions,” said Assistant Secretary for Health Howard K. Koh, MD, MPH. “This web-based tool provides new and critical data that can help us develop better patient-centered approaches to improve health outcomes, lower costs, and maximize quality of life.” In calendar year 2011, spending for Medicare beneficiaries with two or more chronic conditions was about $276 billion, about 93 percent of all Medicare spending. Analytics based on Dashboard data can be an important tool to support policies to help slow the growth in costs for beneficiaries with multiple chronic conditions in years ahead. The Dashboard helps users find, analyze, and apply summarized data from CMS’ Chronic Conditions Data Warehouse. The Dashboard will promote better understanding of overlapping medical conditions related to overall patient health, helping to identify common concurrent conditions and areas where prevention and treatment can improve care and lower costs. CMS’s Medicare Chronic Conditions Dashboard may be accessed at http://www.ccwdata.org/business-intelligence/chronic-conditions/index.htm Along with other CMS reports, such as Chronic Conditions among Medicare Beneficiaries, Chartbook, the Dashboard’s analytics will help CMS and its stakeholders identify states and populations that demonstrate success in care and management of beneficiaries with MCCs. Findings can inform programs, policies, and best practices for Medicare and the entire health care system, which is an essential step in transforming Medicare from a fee-for-service based payer to a value-based purchaser of care that links payments to quality and efficiency of care, rather than sheer volume of services. The Dashboard’s summarized data also is easier to use and protects patients’ privacy by not releasing individually-identifiable health information. The release of the Dashboard reflects the Administration’s continued commitment to increasing the accessibility and usability of federally held data wherever possible and appropriate. Previous initiatives include the Medicare Data Sharing for Performance Measurement program, the Health Data Initiative, and CMS’s provision of data to support care coordination to Accountable Care Organizations and State Medicaid programs. CMS’s Medicare Chronic Conditions Chartbooks and other reports may be accessed at http://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/Chronic-Conditions/index.html. Information on HHS’s Initiative on Multiple Chronic Conditions may be viewed at http://www.hhs.gov/ash/initiatives/mcc/index.html.