Core B - CMS Data Core

OTHER PROJECT INFORMATION – Project Summary/Abstract Core B: CMS Data Core The CMS Data Core acquires, manages, enhances, and makes available for researcher use a rich collection of claims data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The NBER’s existing CMS database consists of Medicare claims for all beneficiaries covered by traditional fee-for-service Medicare over the last 35 years. Incremental goals of this continuation are to add Medicare Advantage (MA) and Medicaid records, and to enhance the data to better support studies of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD), and racial and ethnic disparities in health and healthcare. Working with Core C, we will incorporate in our CMS databases state-of-the-art measures of ADRD symptoms and diagnosis, stages of dementia, and cognitive impairment; state-of-the-art identifiers for patient and to some extent provider race and ethnicity; and likely spousal identification as potential caregivers. There are substantial interactions between Cores B and C, as the methodological implementation of existing algorithms and advances in ADRD and race/ethnicity measurement developed under Core C will be incorporated in our CMS database infrastructure under Core B. To accomplish these aims, we will draw on our extensive experience working with the underlying claims records, newly informed by additional Program Project collaborators with relevant expertise in ADRD patient care, ADRD and dementia- related measurement, and racial disparities research. The core also administers all CMS data security systems and assures that all resources developed from this grant and other NIA-supported research at the NBER are hosted or linkable from the NBER public use data archive. These NBER’s CMS data infrastructure will be used extensively in the research projects proposed here and in roughly 200 other projects that we expect CMS will authorize to reuse the NBER database over the next five years.