CMS announced new initiatives at the June Health Datapalooza Conference held in Washington D.C. CMS has released their first annual update to Medicare hospital information comparing the average amount a hospital bills for services that may be provided in connection with similar inpatient stay or outpatient visits.
The data on the CMS web site provides the first annual update of the hospital inpatient and outpatient data released by the agency last spring. The data includes information comparing the average charges for services that may be provided in connection with the 100 most common Medicare inpatient stays at over 3,000 hospitals in all 50 states and Washington D.D.
CMS released a suite of other data products and tools aimed to increase transparency concerning Medicare payment. The CMS web site now includes inpatient and outpatient hospital charge data for 2012 and new interactive dashboards for the CMS Chronic Conditions Data Warehouse.
CMS also released a new tool to help researchers and other stakeholders estimate the number of Medicare beneficiaries with certain demographic profiles or health conditions. The tool can assist a variety of stakeholders interested in specific figures on Medicare enrollment.
“These public data resources provide a better understanding of Medicare utilization, the burden of chronic conditions among beneficiaries and the implications for our healthcare system, and how this varies by the location of the beneficiaries,” said Bryan Sivak, HHS Chief Technology Officer.
He continued to say, “This information can be used to improve care coordination and health outcomes for Medicare beneficiaries nationwide, and we are looking forward to seeing what the community will do with these releases.”
For more information go to www.cms.gov.