About Chronic Condition Data Warehouse
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) launched the Chronic Condition Data Warehouse (CCW), a research database, in response to the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA). Section 723 of the MMA outlined a plan to improve the quality of care and reduce the cost of care for chronically ill Medicare beneficiaries.
The Beneficiary Link
The CCW data are linked by a unique, unidentifiable beneficiary key, which allows researchers to analyze information across the continuum of care.
The CCW is designed to:
- Follow beneficiaries across multiple care settings
- Identify areas for improving quality of care provided to chronically ill Medicare beneficiaries
- Identify ways to reduce program spending
- Make current Medicare, Medicaid, Assessment and Part D data more readily available to researchers for all types of studies, populations, and rare events
- Provide thorough documentation so researchers understand the common keys, relationships between claims types, and how to use data accurately
Data Availability
CCW contains the following 100% Medicare files for years 1999 - 2010:
- Fee-for-service institutional and non-institutional claims
- Enrollment/eligibility
- Assessment data
100% Medicaid files for years 1999 - 2008
100% Part D prescription drug event data for years 2006 - 2009
- Plan characteristics
- Pharmacy characteristics
- Prescriber characteristics
CCW data files may be requested for any of the predefined chronic condition cohorts, or users may request a customized cohort(s) specific to research focus areas.