CMS pulls the release of Medicare Advantage data

Highlights:

• The release of Medicare Advantage data has been delayed by the CMS from the year of 2014 that it planned to make public at the AcademyHealth’s annual research meeting last week, ProPublica reported.   

• CMS claimed that there were queries about the accuracy of data so the agency decided it should not issue the data to researchers. The agency claimed that it would analyze the 2015 data to decide whether to release that information. Medicare already gives information on the 38 million conventional Medicare beneficiaries.
• In response to the delay, former chief data officer of CMS, Niall Brennan, who worked on the data, said that he was disappointed with decision of CMS. He tweeted, “[h]ope CMS not backsliding on #opendata.”

Details:
Researchers eagerly awaited the data release to ultimately get to dig into the Medicare Advantage numbers. As Medicare Advantage has acquired fame, there has been added scrutiny — specifically regarding payments.
Brennan appreciated in a tweet that the Medicare Advantage data “had few quirks,” but he wondered why the data is utilized for payments to insurance companies, but is not great enough for researchers.