Arkansas APCD 21D Release Notes - April 2022

The Arkansas Healthcare Transparency Initiative (HTI) Arkansas APCD 21D database is now available.  The Arkansas APCD 21D release includes data through June 2021.  The Data Coverage table provides overall coverage periods.  Some submitters within these categories have exemptions affecting their coverage.  Refer to the Arkansas APCD 21D 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

Arkansas Works Data

Jan 2014 – June 2021

Commercial, Fully Insured Data

Jan 2013 – June 2021

Arkansas Employee Benefits Division Data

Jan 2013 – June 2021

Arkansas Medicaid Data

Jan 2013 – June 2021

Arkansas Qualified Health Plan Data

Jan 2014 – June 2021

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 2018

Medical Marijuana Cardholders Data

Jan 2013 – Sept 2020

Arkansas Workers' Compensation Data

Jan 2013 – June 2021

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.

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 Status

 

Arkansas Department of Health Data

Comorbidity fields have been added to the Arkansas Department of Health Inpatient Discharge Data and Emergency Department Data.

38 Hospital Inpatient Discharge comorbidity fields are now available and include but are not limited to: Alcohol Abuse, Cancers, Dementia, Diabetes, etc.

39 Emergency Department comorbidity fields are now available and include but are not limited to: Congestive Heart Failure, Paralysis, Hypertension

See Data Dictionary.

Included.

 

 

 

47155

Delta Dental

An internal system change at Delta Dental resulted in a data submission gap in which records were not received when an enrollment segment closed. 

 Replacement data has been received and applied for years 2015 forward, correcting disenrollment dates (ME163A) to close segments appropriately. Counts between previous builds and the current build may vary. While previously open disenrollment dates are now closed, the replacement data contains high numbers of open segments. Research continues to resolve this.

 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. 

 See Data Tip 0080.

Issues resolved.

 

99EBD1

Employee Benefits Division

Revenue codes (MC054) found on inpatient and outpatient medical claims are sometimes missing leading zeros. 

 ITS codes on EBD claims now contain the previously missing leading zeros and are usable.  Revenue codes on non-ITS claims are still being addressed and should not be used.

 See Data Tip 0096.

Issues partially resolved.

99MCD1

Arkansas Medicaid (99MCD1)

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 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.  These are joined 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 not contain the Arkansas Medicaid PASS claims data. 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.

99MCR1

Arkansas Medicare (99MCD1)

All fee for service claims for 2019 have been added. 

Informational

16244

Empower Healthcare Solutions, LLC  (MCD PASSE)

Current 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. 

Number of covered lives for this submitter: 28,106

Not included.

Important Information

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

  • Review the latest Arkansas APCD 21D Universe Counts 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 September 2021.