Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Databases

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ)  Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) is a family of databases and tools intended to improve the quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of the U.S.   health care system.  HCUP results from Federal-State-Industry partnership to build a comprehensive all payer data system.  A summary of the databases available from…

All-Payer Claims Data

One of the challenges of studying import issues in health economics is that the patients often come in and out of your data file.  For instance, beneficiaries often switch their private health insurance plan, or can become eligible for public insurance (e.g., Medicare or Medicaid) or the individual may lose their insurace coverage.  In each…

What happened to the Census?

The year 2010 marks the last for the decennial Census.  Although you might miss the ad campaigns every 10 years, the Census hasn’t really disappeared completely.  Instead, it’s being replaced by the American Community Survey (ACS).  Although the goals of the ACS are similar to those of the Census, its approach is very different.  Rather…

Healthcare Worker Demand: 2009 Q4 Data

How is the health care labor market in your area?  HWS Enterprises put together a gauge of the healthcare workforce labor demand throughout 30 large metropolitan regions in the United States.  The results for Q4 are available here.  The strongest healthcare labor markets are Sacramento, Riverside, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Dallas.  The weakest is New York…

CPS undercounts Medicaid Enrollees

Survey estimates of Medicaid enrollment are 43 percent lower than raw Medicaid program enrollment counts.  Why is this the case?  Roebuck and Liberman (HSR 2009) find that many people are not reporting that they have Medicaid coverage.  “43 percent of Medicaid enrollees answering the CPS as though they were not enrolled and 17 percent reported…

Medicare Part D data available

For researchers interested in studying the Medicare prescription drug benefit, CMS has claims data for Medicare Part D.  Academy Health also has a useful powerpoint presentation giving some more information regarding Medicare Part D and what information is available as part of the CMS Medicare Part D claims data.