Medicare to Tighten Access to Research Data; Some Are Upset

Header: Some groups are quite upset at CMS proposals to close or tighten access to research data.

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CMS has very extensive public data resources https://data.cms.gov/ as well as massive data resources available through agreements and contracting.

According to several recent news sources, CMS plans to make the data access harder, to say the least.   See an article at Forbes here:

  https://www-forbes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.forbes.com/sites/gebai/2024/02/18/who-owns-medicare-and-medicaid-data-we-the-people/amp/

At Medriva here:

https://medriva.com/news/healthcare-policy/the-future-of-medicare-data-access-research-and-security-concerns/

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See a CMS announcement that the news articles are building on:

https://www.cms.gov/data-research/files-order/data-disclosures-and-data-use-agreements-duas/important-research-data-request-access-policy-changes-0

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See recent articles about how $2B in Medicare fraud was picked up by outside parties (like ACO's) through their access to relevant CMS data - here.

I don't believe this affects currently open access data such as, "Medicare Physician & Other Practitioners by Provider and Service."  What does that mean?  Physician by Provider - doctor by doctor name.  By Service - by CPT code.  Each doctor and each paid CPT code he got, by year.   Here.