Executive Summary

Researchers will soon get a gift from Medicare - they'll be able to order selections of data from up to 100% of claims. Steve Phurrough, CMS Coverage & Analysis Group director, told an audience at the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics meeting Oct. 25 in Washington, D.C., that the database will include all Medicare claims data, beginning with 2005, including inpatient, outpatient, nursing home and durable medical equipment data. "You will be able as a researcher to say to us, 'I want to see all your data on MI, or kidney stones,' whatever it is that you want, and it will be 100% of our claims," he said. At present, researchers can only request a selection of about 5% of the data. Phurrough hopes that with expanded availability, mandated by the Medicare Modernization Act, CMS will see more clinical data that can be applied directly to the Medicare population...