The HHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) https://oig.hhs.gov released the draft report “National Review of Opioid Prescribing in Medicaid is Not Yet Possible” on August 2019, to discuss how national Medicaid data submitted by all the states so far is not complete, accurate, or timely.
Because of concerns with the quality and completeness of the national Medicaid claims database referred to as the “Transformed Medicaid Statistical Information System” (T-MSIS), OIG assessed how to obtain the information on variables needed to monitor national opioid prescribing in Medicaid.
Since there were concerns with the quality and completeness of the national Medicaid Claims database, OIG’s draft report assesses the variables needed to identify beneficiaries at risk of opioid misuse or overdose, diagnosis codes are needed to exclude patients where higher doses of opioids may be appropriate, and be able to identify the National Provider Identifiers (NPI) of providers that order and dispense opioids.
On August 1, 2019, Kim Brandt, Principal Deputy Administrator for CMS https://www.cms.gov sent a letter to Joanne M. Chiedi, Acting Inspector General, to report that CMS has identified 12 top priority items for T-MSIS data quality and is implementing a process that will enable T-MSIS data users to link related identifiers to one another so that beneficiaries can be uniquely identified at a national level.
Go to https://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-05-18-00480.pdf for the HHS OIG Data Snapshot titled “National Review of Opioid Prescribing in Medicaid is Not Yet Possible” released August 2019. For additional information, contact Public.Affairs@oig.hhs.gov.