Thanks to Allison Colker of SAMHSA for sharing this update. Get on it researchers!

• The CMS Federal Coordinated Health Care Office (FCHCO), AKA the Medicare-Medicaid Coordination Office (MMCO), has announced that new tools to facilitate research on the unique needs of Medicare-Medicaid enrollees, including those tools CMS put out for comment this past spring, are now available.  These tools are: 

  New condition flags within the Chronic Condition Warehouse (CCW). The following changes are being made:

  Adding nine new mental health and tobacco-use condition flags for all beneficiaries (Medicare-only, Medicaid-only and Medicare-Medicaid enrollees) for CY2006-CY2008:

  • Attention deficit, hyperactivity, and conduct disorders
  • Anxiety disorders              
  • Bipolar disorder                     
  • Type 1 major depression and Type 2 depressive disorders
  • Personality disorders                 
  • Post-traumatic stress disorders                 
  • Schizophrenia                 
  • Schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders                 
  • Tobacco use

• Expanding the existing 27 CCW condition flags to Medicaid-only populations for CY 2008.
• Creating new versions of the existing 27 CCW condition flags for CY 2008 for Medicare-Medicaid enrollees that take into account both their Medicare and Medicaid experience (prior to this they were based only on Medicare experience).
• New Medicare-Medicaid Linked Enrollee Analytic Data Source (MMLEADS) research suite of files.  The CY2008 files contain information on Medicare-Medicaid enrollees, and for comparison purposes, Medicare-only and Medicaid-only individuals with disabilities.  These files contain a breadth of information on eligibility, enrollment, all existing and new clinical condition flags, service utilization and expenditures incurred by both programs.

  What’s next?  MMCO is developing additional condition flags, including for HIV/AIDS and a range of intellectual and developmental disabilities; working to apply the reconfigured versions of the existing and new flags to all existing years of data in the CCW; and creating linked files for additional years.

  To learn more about these new tools, please go to www.ccwdata.org.  Researchers can request these data at www.resdac.org ; States may request the data through our Office by contacting MedicareMedicaidCoordination@cms.hhs.gov .