Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator Seema Verma intends to increase federal use of data reported by the states to improve the performance of state Medicaid programs.

In an article published on the CMS blog, Verma wrote that

Through strong data and systems, CMS and states can drive toward better health outcomes and improve program integrity, performance, and financial management in Medicaid and CHIP.

Verma pointed to two core sets of data she considers vital:  Medicaid and CHIP child and adult core sets, which are reported only voluntarily by states, and administrative data submitted through the relatively new Transformed-MIS system.  The latter, according to Verma.

…modernizes and enhances the way states submit operational data about beneficiaries, providers, claims and encounters.  It is the foundation of a national analytic data infrastructure to support programmatic and policy improvements and program integrity efforts and will help advance reporting on outcomes.  It also enhances the ability to identify potential fraud and improve program efficiency.

All states now use Transformed-MIS.

Learn more about how CMS uses data now and how it envisions using it in the future to improve the performance of state Medicaid programs in the CMS blog entry “CMS Promises Enhanced Use of Medicaid Data to Improve Program Results,” which can be found here.