Stats & Data - CT Health Policy

CT’s APCD chooses data contractor, concerns remain

By Ellen Andrews | November 12, 2014 |

The Hartford Business Journal is reporting that CT’s developing all-payer claims database (APCD), run by AccessHealthCT, has chosen Onpoint Health Data to run their system. APCDs have enormous potential to improve population health, track problems, evaluate solutions and maximize scarce resources. Most New England states are ahead of CT in APCD development. However, concerns have…

Fact checking CT’s uninsured numbers since the ACA

By Ellen Andrews | August 19, 2014 |

An article in today’s CT Mirror focuses on a question bouncing around CT health policy circles – what impact has ObamaCare had on coverage in our state? The answer – we don’t know. Current estimates by Access Health CT have caveats. Highly recommended reading — especially click on the graphic.

Medicaid Council update

By Ellen Andrews | June 16, 2014 |

The agenda for last week’s Medicaid Council meeting was very full. We reviewed DSS’s latest ConneCT Dashboard. More clients are using the online system, but more are also walking into a DSS office. The backlog of documents to be scanned is gone and last month the online system was never down. However, the call abandonment…

CTNJ op-ed: Privacy and trust concerns at CT’s APCD

By Ellen Andrews | May 22, 2014 |

Advocates are raising concerns about the privacy of sensitive medical records at Access Health Analytics, our state’s all-payer claims database (APCD). At the CT Health Policy Projects we have been great supporters of an APCD for CT knowing that, if done well, it could be a powerful tool to give consumers information about the cost…

Medicaid update

By Ellen Andrews | April 12, 2014 |

Yesterday’s Medicaid Council focused on improving enrollment and quality performance in the program. From the new ConneCT Dashboard we learned that there is no longer a backlog of enrollment documents waiting to be scanned into the system, that waiting times for the call center are down from 75 to 39 minutes, but that the hours…

Exchange enrollment growing, but how many were uninsured?

By Ellen Andrews | February 5, 2014 |

A CT Mirror report looking underneath AccessHealthCT’s enrollment numbers finds that we don’t know how many of the 94,000 people enrollees were previously uninsured. A national study finds that only 11% of exchange enrollees were uninsured; our exchange estimates that rate between 25% and 50%. Even the most generous estimate makes clear that we are…

CEPAC meeting on dense breast tissue screening

By Ellen Andrews | December 23, 2013 |

This month’s CEPACmeeting focused on that status of comparative effectiveness research on supplemental cancer screening for women with dense breast tissue. 40% of women have dense tissue, both raising the risk of cancer and the chances that a lump will be masked on a routine mammogram. CT is the only state that both requires notification…

APCD Roundtable – lessons for CT

By Ellen Andrews | October 25, 2013 |

Yesterday’s CT Health Policy Roundtable on All-Payer Claims Databases yielded many lessons for CT from other states and organizations. Lessons included the need for strong privacy and security protections, avoiding commercial uses, licensing to universities and organizations rather than individuals, and developing a transparent, fair process for access to the data based on the…

Medicaid performance dashboard unveiled; marked improvement with switch from HUSKY HMOs

By Ellen Andrews | October 15, 2013 |

At Friday’s Medicaid Council meeting, DSS described their new ASO accountability dashboard with performance measures for the program. From January 2012, when the HMOs left the program, to this June the number of providers participating in CT’s program has grown 32%, hospital admissions are down 3.2%, the average length of stay is down 5%,…

CT Health Policy Roundtable: CT’s APCD

By Ellen Andrews | September 21, 2013 |

Join national and state experts for a Roundtable to learn more about the potential for Connecticut’s new All-Payer Claims Database in health care planning, improving health care quality, capacity and promoting health equity. The Roundtable is sponsored by the CT Health Policy Project, the CT Center for Patient Safety and Access Health Analytics and made…