Federal agencies encourage data sharing with model, funds
Three federal agencies have released a model data-sharing agreement describing how far states can and can’t go in sharing Medicaid, public health, and other types of information. The move is part of the federal government’s push for state Medicaid programs to expand their role beyond claims payers to data-driven, outcomes-oriented advocates for their beneficiaries.
To help the cause, the federal government is willing to free up existing categorical funding for health care programming. And states that follow the government’s recommendations for mission-oriented programs stand the best chance of seeing their grants funded.
The obstacles to combining Medicaid data with information from other health agencies are legion and long-standing. Government officials face regulatory hurdles, real and imagined, from laws and regulations that protect the confidentiality of patient-specific data. Linking data bases is a technically complex task that depends upon the presence of a common field, and usually a unique patient identifier. Turf battles over the use of data can sabotage even the best-crafted and worthwhile projects.
An initiative from the Health Care Financing Adminis tration (HCFA), which administers the Medicaid program, and the Health Services Research Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which oversee many of the nation’s key public health initiatives, provides a map for state agencies on that rocky road to collaboration.
"Frankly, in HCFA, we have been urging the states to move into more of a public health mode in managing the Medicaid program," says Stanley Nachimson, a technical director in the data and systems group within HCFA’s Center for State and Medicaid Operations. "It’s not just paying claims, enrolling beneficiaries, and enrolling providers. It’s making sure they’re getting quality health care and value for their dollars, especially in contracting with managed care plans."
The model agreement focuses on the statutory and administrative constraints involved in sharing Medicaid data. "Those were probably the strictest," says Nachimson.
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