Arkansas APCD 22D Release Notes - March 2023

Owned by Kenley Money, created
Last updated: Apr 14 2023
6 min read

The Arkansas Healthcare Transparency Initiative (HTI) Arkansas APCD 22D database is now available.  The Arkansas APCD 22D release includes data through June 2022.  The Data Coverage table provides overall coverage periods.  Some submitters within these categories have exemptions affecting their coverage.  Refer to the 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

Arkansas Works Data

Jan 2014 – June 2022

Commercial, Fully Insured Data

Jan 2013 – June 2022

Arkansas Employee Benefits Division Data

Jan 2013 – June 2022

Arkansas Medicaid Data

Jan 2013 – June 2022

Arkansas Qualified Health Plan Data

Jan 2014 – June 2022

Arkansas Medicare Data

Jan 2013 - Dec 2020

Vital Statistics Data - Arkansas Birth Certificate Data

Jan 2013 - Dec 2021

Vital Statistics Data - Arkansas Death Certificate Data

Jan 2013 - Dec 2021

Inpatient Hospital Discharge Data (uninsured or self-pay patients)

Jan 2013 - Dec 2021

Emergency Department Data (uninsured or self-pay patients)

Jan 2013 - Dec 2021

Cancer Registry Data

Jan 2013 - Dec 2019

Medical Marijuana Cardholders Data

Jan 2013 – Sept 2020

Arkansas Workers' Compensation Data

Jan 2013 – June 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 Source Specific Release Notes section for more information.

TERMINOLOGY CHANGE

The term Hash ID can be somewhat ambiguous. It refers to both the APCD Unique ID (ME998) and also the combination of the APCD Unique ID (ME998) + the Member Gender (ME013). To better align with analytic terminology and and provide clear information, the new definitions are here:

  • APCD_Unique_ID = refers to field ME998.

  • Hash_ID = refers to field ME998.

  • Study_ID = concatenated APCD_Unique_ID (ME998) and member gender (ME013).

Source Specific Release Notes

Certain submitting entities 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 Notes

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.

Informational

65676

Lincoln

Issues were discovered with disenrollment dates for Lincoln.  These have been resolved.

Informational

83470, 95442

Arkansas BlueCross BlueShield

Previous build: This submitting entity was 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 in place: Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield dental data has been corrected and resubmitted.

Informational

99EBD1

Arkansas Employee Benefits Division (EBD)

EBD medical claims and pharmacy claims data submission has changed. Older EBD claims data is still sourced from EBD while new data is now sourced by third party administrators (TPA). This is applicable to data from this update forward.

Projects utilizing data from previous updates should not use this information. See Data Tip/Issue: https://achiapcd.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ADRS/pages/544276491

The methodology to distinguish between EBD data and TPA data gong forward is described here:

Member Data:

Member Data Group 1: All EBD member/enrollment data sourced from EBD for 2014-12-31 back is usable for both EBD medical and pharmacy claims in that time period.

To select these member data:

select records from member data where ME001 = '99EBD1' and ME162A <= '2014-12-31' and ME163A >= '2013-01-01'

Member Data Group 2: Only EBD member/enrollment data sourced from EBD and associated with EBD Pharmacy claims is usable for 2015-01-01 to 2022-05-31:

select records from Member data where ME001 = '99EBD1' and ME162A <= '2022-05-31' and ME163A >= '2015-01-01'

Member Data Group 3: To find EBD member/enrollment data from Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield (EBD TPA for medical claims) for 2015-01-01 forward:

Select records from member data where ME001 = '95442' and ME003 = 'EBD'

 

Future Member Data: Member data associated with EBD pharmacy data managed by its pharmacy benefit manager, MedImpact (99MDI2 and 99MDI3), are still being finalized.

Medical Claims:

Medical claims data from 2014-12-31 back are still sourced from EBD:

To find associated EBD member/enrollment data for medical claims 2014-12-31 back:

Medical claims data from 2015-01-01 forward are no longer sourced from EBD and are now sourced from Health Advantage (Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield). There is no field to flag a claim as EBD so the medical claims must be matched to the member data to identify it as an EBD claim.

Pharmacy Claims:

Pharmacy claims data 2022-05-31 back are still sourced from EBD:

To find associated EBD member/enrollment data for pharmacy claims:

Pharmacy claims data from 2022-06-01 forward are no longer sourced from EBD and will be submitted by its pharmacy benefits manager, MedImpact (99MDI2, 99MDI3). These data are not available yet. Once available, selection criteria will be provided.

Therefore, medical claims and associated member data (whether from EBD or Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield) is available from 2013-01-01 through current. Pharmacy claims and associated member data is available from 2013-01-01 through 2022-05-31.

Linking between EBD and PBMs:

EBD, Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and MedImpact member IDs do not match across source systems. Users must use the Study ID methodology to join members across submitters. See Data Tip: https://achiapcd.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ADRS/pages/406847537

 

Informational

60054A

Aetna

Aetna 60054M has been sunsetted and its active members have moved to 81973. Approximately 13% of the member segments remain open. It can be assumed that where ME163A = ‘9999-12-31’, ME163A should be considered ‘2018-12-31’. Permanent resolution is in development.

Note: Users must use the Hash ID methodology to join members across submitters. See Data Tip: https://achiapcd.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ADRS/pages/406847537

Informational

99MCD1

 

16244

Arkansas Medicaid

Empower Healthcare Solutions, LLC (PASSE)

Arkansas Medicaid and PASSE submitting entities will be submitting the the 4 digit Medicaid State Aid Category called the iC Aid Category Code in ME910, MC910, PC910 and DC910. The traditional 2 digit value is the first two characters in the iC Aid Category Code value. Refer to this reference:

https://humanservices.arkansas.gov/wp-content/uploads/MMIS_BenefitPlans.pdf

Empower Healthcare is the first PASSE entity to submit this value. Remaining PASSE entities will submit in upcoming submissions.

Informational.

Important Information

  • The APCD Unique ID (ME998 or Hash ID) is consistent with the previous build.

  • Review the latest published on the APCD website for information about the latest data available.

  • Utilize the searchable Arkansas APCD data dictionaries and tip sheets (be sure to review all of them).

  • For high level descriptions of the APCD and its data, refer to the Arkansas APCD Infographic for a summary of the latest data available to data requesters for June 2022.