Arkansas APCD 22C Release Notes - October 2022

The Arkansas Healthcare Transparency Initiative (HTI) Arkansas APCD 22C database is now available. The Arkansas APCD 22C release includes data through March 2022. The Data Coverage table provides overall coverage periods. Some submitters within these categories have exemptions affecting their coverage. Refer to the Arkansas APCD 22C Universe Counts spreadsheet for submitter specific coverage information.

Note, hereafter, the release number will be included with database name, e.g. 20B. The Arkansas APCD is updated quarterly though only the second and fourth updates annually are available for release.

The Arkansas APCD quarterly releases can be identified using the following naming convention:

Quarter	Coverage Period	Release	Example	Available
Q1	January 1, 2013 – September 30, [previous year]	[Year][A]	20A	n/a
Q2	January 1, 2013 – December 31, [previous year]	[Year][B]	20B*	July/August
Q3	January 1, 2013 – March 31, [current year]	[Year][C]	20C	n/a
Q4	January 1, 2013 – June 30, [current year]	[Year][D]	20D*	January/February

*Arkansas APCD releases available for data request fulfillment.

Data Coverage

Source Category	Coverage
ARHOME (formerly Arkansas Works) Data	Jan 2014 – March 2022
Commercial, Fully Insured Data	Jan 2013 – March 2022
Arkansas Employee Benefits Division Data	Jan 2013 – March 2022
Arkansas Medicaid Data	Jan 2013 – March 2022
Arkansas Qualified Health Plan Data	Jan 2014 – March 2022
Arkansas Medicare Data	Jan 2013 - Dec 2019
Vital Statistics Data - Arkansas Birth Certificate Data	Jan 2013 - Dec 2020
Vital Statistics Data - Arkansas Death Certificate Data	Jan 2013 - Dec 2020
Inpatient Hospital Discharge Data (uninsured or self-pay patients)	Jan 2013 - Dec 2020
Emergency Department Data (uninsured or self-pay patients)	Jan 2013 - Dec 2020
Cancer Registry Data	Jan 2013 - Dec 2019
Medical Marijuana Cardholders Data	Jan 2013 – Sept 2020
Arkansas Workers' Compensation Data	Jan 2013 – March 2022

With a few exceptions, all required submitting entities have submitted data in the ranges indicated in the Data Coverage table above. Refer to the Submitting Entity Specific Release Notes section for more information.

Submitting Entity Specific Release Notes

Submitting entities may have been added or omitted from the Arkansas APCD for this release. Those omitted have data quality issues that are being resolved. These issues are significant, resulting in their omission from the database release until resolution. Once resolved, previously excluded submitting entities are included in subsequent builds. The table below lists the problematic entities and their current status.

SE_ID	Submitting Entity	Release Notes	Release Status
16244	Empower Healthcare Solutions, LLC (MCD PASSE)	Original status: Issues have been identified with the APCD Unique ID (ME998) on the member data therefore data for this submitting entity will not be available for selection. The Arkansas APCD team is working with the submitting entity on data correction and resubmission. Updated status: Issue has been resolved and data resubmitted.	Included
47155	Delta Dental	An internal system change at Delta Dental resulted in a data submission gap in which updated records were not received when an enrollment segment closed. Replacement data has been received and applied to years 2015 forward, correcting disenrollment dates (ME163A) to close segments appropriately. NOTE: Years 2013 and 2014 are still problematic and cannot be corrected. This workaround is suggested: Pull the available claims for members and assess the latest paid date to understand when the members were last active. Determine if the time since the last paid date represents what could be an inactive member. Updated status: Segments are still being received as open that should be closed. Use with caution until final resolution is in place. The referenced data tip provides suggested workaround. See Data Tip 0080.	Included.
99EBD1	Employee Benefits Division	A pharmacy claim versioning workaround is available. The methodology requires grouping by script number, pharmacy number, fill date, and drug code, not claim line. See Data Tip 0121.	Included
99MCD1	Arkansas Medicaid	New flags have been added in this update to identify PASSE claims submitted by Arkansas Medicaid. The Provider-led Arkansas Shared Savings Entity (PASSE) – a new model of organized care created by Arkansas Act 775 – addresses the total health care needs of Medicaid beneficiaries who have behavioral health (BH) disorders or intellectual developmental disabilities (IDD). The purpose of the model is to improve the health of those who need intensive levels of specialized care, link providers of physical health care with specialty BH and IDD providers and coordinate care for all community-based services. PASSE third party administrators (TPA) submit claims for the services provided to qualifying Arkansas Medicaid beneficiaries. Arkansas Medicaid also submits these claims as part of the Arkansas Medicaid data provided to the Arkansas APCD. The Arkansas Medicaid PASSE claims should NOT be used. They do not contain usable data for these services. To identify PASSE claims, Arkansas Medicaid provides a supplemental file containing all PASSE claim numbers. The HTI team joins these data to the Arkansas Medicaid claims. When a match occurs, the PASSE flag is set on medical (MC841), pharmacy (PC841), or dental (DC841) claims. Going forward, fulfilled data requests will contain the private carrier version of the PASSE claim, not the Arkansas Medicaid PASSE claim. Arkansas Medicaid PASS claims are available upon request. To identify and manage PASSE claims in older Arkansas APCD data, refer to Data Tip 0047.	Informational
99MCD1	Arkansas Medicaid	All dental claims from January 1, 2013 through March 2022 were resubmitted to correct an issue with DC030 - Facility Type. This field was previously coded with a single placeholder value. Arkansas Medicaid facility type codes are now present.	Informational
12567	Care Improvement	Incorrect disenrollment dates were identified for this submitting entity. The disenrollment dates have been corrected. See Data Tip 0098.	Included
90328	First Health/Aetna	Incorrect disenrollment dates were identified for this submitting entity. The disenrollment dates have been corrected. See Data Tip 0098.	Included
60054M	AETNA Life Insurance Company-Traditional	Values in ME003, MC003, PC003, DC003 for plans/claims associated with AETNA’s Medicare Risk/Part C plans were incorrect. The incorrect value, ‘HM’, has been transformed to the correct value, ‘HN’ on the appropriate enrollment and claims data.	Included
65676	Lincoln	Issues were discovered with disenrollment dates for Lincoln. Lincoln data is not included in the 22C database.	Not included
83470, 95442	Arkansas BlueCross BlueShield	This submitting entity is transitioning to a new dental claim processing system. Issues exist with newer data pulls. The only dental claim data available is through December 2021. Resolution is in development.	Included
12331	United River Valley	Incorrect disenrollment dates were identified for this submitting entity. The disenrollment dates have been corrected. See Data Tip 0098.	Included

Data Specific Release Notes

Version 8 of the Arkansas APCD data submission guide (DSG) was released on December 1, 2021, adding several new data fields and requiring changes to some existing fields. Submitting entities were scheduled to begin submission of these new data as of June 30, 2022. The changes affecting data requesters and data users are outlined here.

NOTE: These fields will be partially populated for this release. Not all submitters have submitted these new data yet.

New Fields

Data Element Number	Data Element Name	Description
ME024	Member Hispanic Indicator	Indicator represents member’s Hispanic origin.
ME159A	Subscriber Hispanic Indicator	Indicator represents subscriber’s Hispanic origin.
ME910	Medicaid AID Category	This field contains the primary Medicaid State Aid Category value for member plans submitted by Arkansas Medicaid and Provider-Led Arkansas Shared Savings entities (PASSE). This data was previously populated in ME040. ME040 will contain the Federal Medicaid State AID Category going forward.
MC021	Point of Origin Code	This code indicates the source of the referral for an admission or visit. Required except for Bill Type 14X, (the bill type is used for non-patient laboratory specimens and the point of origin would not be known).
MC910	Medicaid AID Category	This field contains the primary Medicaid State Aid Category value for medical claims submitted by Arkansas Medicaid and Provider-Led Arkansas Shared Savings entities (PASSE).
MC966	Other Insurance Paid Amount	Amount already paid by another carrier. Report the amount that a prior payer has paid for this claim line. Indicates the submitting payer is not the primary payer. Only report “0” if the prior payer paid 0 toward this claim line; or if there is no prior payer.
PC113	Payment Arrangement Type	Value for contracted payment methodology at the claim level.
PC910	Medicaid AID Category	This field contains the primary Medicaid State Aid Category value for pharmacy claims submitted by Arkansas Medicaid and Provider-Led Arkansas Shared Savings entities (PASSE).
PC038	Postage Amount Claimed	Amount of postage claimed on the claim line.
DC113	Payment Arrangement Type	Indicates payment methodology at the claim level, e.g. capitation, fee for service, DRG, global payment, etc.
DC910	Medicaid AID Category	This field contains the primary Medicaid State Aid Category value for dental claims submitted by Arkansas Medicaid and Provider-Led Arkansas Shared Savings entities (PASSE).
DC911	Diagnosis Code	This field contains the ICD-9-CM or ICD-10-CM diagnosis code indicating the reason for the service. Decimal point is not coded.
DC915A	ICD Indicator	Indicates use of ICD-9 or ICD-10 code sets. Code sets cannot be mixed on a record.

Changes to Existing Fields

Data Element Number	Data Element Name	Description
ME021, ME022	Member Race 1, Member Race 2	These fields were originally optional. Submitting entities are now required to submit them.
ME025, ME026	Member Ethnicity 1, Member Ethnicity 2	These fields were originally optional. Submitting entities are now required to submit them.
ME033, ME157A	Member Language, Subscriber Language	These fields were originally optional. Submitting entities are now required to submit them.
ME154A, ME155A	Subscriber Race 1, Subscriber Race 2	These fields were originally optional. Submitting entities are now required to submit them.
ME156A, ME166A	Subscriber Ethnicity 1, Subscriber Ethnicity 2	These fields were originally optional. Submitting entities are now required to submit them.
ME040	Member Product Code	This change applies to Arkansas Medicaid. This field now contains Federal Medicaid AID Category codes. State AID Category codes are now in ME910.
ME112	Referring National Provider ID	These fields were originally optional. Submitting entities are now required to submit them.
ME122	Grandfather Status	New data element values added.
MC023	Final Discharge Status	This field is now populated for Institutional claims as well as inpatient claims.
MC039	Admitting Diagnosis	This field is now populated for Institutional claims as well as inpatient claims.
MC058-MC058L	ICD Procedure Codes	This field is now populated for Institutional claims as well as inpatient claims.
MC092	Covered Days	This field is now populated for Institutional claims as well as inpatient claims.
MC154-MC166	Present on Admission Codes	This field is now populated for Institutional claims as well as inpatient claims.

Additional Information

The Arkansas APCD team provides reference tables supporting data element such as race, procedure and diagnosis codes. Refreshed tables are available here: https://www.arkansasapcd.net/Docs/1420/
Comorbidity fields have been added to the Arkansas Department of Health Inpatient Discharge Data and Emergency Department Data. See Data Dictionary.
The APCD Unique ID (ME998 or Hash ID) is consistent with the previous build.
Utilize the searchable Arkansas APCD data dictionaries and tip sheets (be sure to review all of them).
Refer to the Arkansas APCD Infographic for a high level description of the APCD and its data, including a summary of the latest data available to data requesters as of March 2022.