The IPA is working with several groups including the local employers that have requested reports from the Colorado All Payer Claims Database (CO APCD).

Individual Project Updates:

  • The ED Utilization project requested by Weld county Department of Public Health has been fully completed and delivered.
  • Both knee projects requested by Larimer County – i.e. knee surgery Prometheus episodes of care analysis and knee surgery referral patterns –have been approved for funding through the CO APCD Scholarship program.
  • The Low Value Care Tool project requested by Colorado Business Group on Health (CBGH) has been approved for funding through the CO APCD Scholarship program.
  • The Advanced Care Directives billing project requested by Systems of Care Initiative (SOCI) is in the final stages of scholarship approval.  This project required a little further review as it involved using Medicare FFS data.  Expect to have final approval very soon.

Next Steps:

    • Knee Surgery Projects:  These 2 projects focus on looking at cost and utilization around episodes of care for knee replacements and knee arthroscopy from 2017 – 2018.  The final deliverables will provide a view of cost and utilization in northern Colorado compared the state overall as well as referral patterns.  Status: CIVHC is currently running the CO APCD data through the Prometheus tool through a new vendor which will allow us to provide a more robust deliverable. This process is underway and will be followed by a thorough and careful quality control review.  We anticipate having the final deliverable for both these projects in October, barring no unforeseen data quality issues or delays with the new vendor.
    • Advanced Care Directives billing:  This project is in the final stages of CO APCD scholarship approval now.  Once approved, this is a relatively straightforward analysis looking at volume of billing for advanced care directives in northern Colorado versus the state overall.  Will update Jan Gillespie, MD and SOCI on the timeline as soon as we have final scholarship and Medicare FFS data approval.
    • Low Value Care Tool:  The Colorado APCD data is currently being run through the Milliman Health Waste Calculator software.  Once this is complete, there will be a thorough and careful quality review conducted, and then analysis of the data to produce a specific report for Northern CO can begin.  Similar to the two knee projects, we expect to have the final deliverable available in October barring no unforeseen data quality issues or vendor delays.

 

Once all projects have been completed and each requesting organization has had time to digest, review, and analyze their own information, the IPA and other parties will meet in November to share key takeaways and consider potential actionable items and next steps.