FAIR Health Uncovers Innovative Uses of Claims Data

September 26, 2017

Awareness of the value of robust, actionable claims data from a trusted, independent source is growing across the healthcare sector. FAIR Health has been highlighting the potential that claims data and our innovative healthcare products can bring to many aspects of healthcare—among them, daily healthcare operations, strategic decision making, cutting-edge research that reveals insights about today’s healthcare issues, and much more. We participated in several events in June, including:

• FAIR Health President Robin Gelburd spoke at Becker’s 15th Annual Spine, Orthopedic and Pain Management-Driven ASC Conference + The Future of Spine conference in Chicago, Illinois. More than 1,100 attendees, including orthopedic surgeons, administrators and owners and operators of ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) convened for this event focused on key business, clinical and legal issues. Ms. Gelburd’s presentation, entitled “Analyzing Claims Data to Uncover the Costs of the Opioid Crisis” referred to our recent white papers that offer fresh insights into the opioid epidemic. She explained how FAIR Health analysts used data from our repository to break new ground, analyzing, among other related topics, diagnosis trends by region, including comparison of the country’s five most populous cities and their respective states.
• At AcademyHealth’s 2017 Interest Groups Meeting, held in New Orleans, Louisiana, FAIR Health Executive Director of Business Development Donna Smith and Executive Director of Customer Experience Chris O’Donnell presented a poster entitled “Spotlight on Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes in the Pediatric Population: A Study of Private Claims Data.”  In keeping with the meeting’s focus—sharing findings with the goal of using research as a catalyst to improve health and healthcare—the study represented by FAIR Health’s poster brought to light concerning results about the growing prevalence of obesity and type 2 diabetes among young Americans. As evidenced by FAIR Health’s data, during the period 2011 to 2015, private healthcare claims for individuals ages 0 through 22 with a type 2 diabetes diaqnosis more than doubled. That information was also published in an original FAIR Health white paper.
• The American Health Information Management Association’s (AHIMA’s) 13th Annual Long Term Post Acute Care (LTPAC) & Health IT Summit, a premier meeting for policy makers and leaders interested in issues related to LTPAC, was held in Baltimore, Maryland. This year’s conference included an energetic panel discussion entitled “Engagement as a Key Disruptor.” As part of her contribution to the discussion, Ms. Gelburd introduced the audience to FAIR Health and explained our mission-driven role in advancing cost transparency, our considerable claims data assets and the broad range of applications of our data. Those uses range from business and operational support to fee schedules and reimbursement, public health, consumer engagement, policy making and, to the specific point, research on topics including trends in cost and utilization of LTPAC services.  

Ms. Gelburd stated, “It is gratifying to consider the breadth of uses to which stakeholders are applying our claims data. And, with the introduction of allowed amount benchmarks coming in August, we anticipate that our data will be used to shed an even brighter light on important trends in the healthcare sector.”

For information about how FAIR Health’s claims data can illuminate your organization’s initiatives, contact us by e-mail at info@fairhealth.org or call us at 855-301-3247, Monday through Friday, 9 am to 6 pm ET.