BETHESDA, MD 14 January 2009—The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on Tuesday announced the launch of Medicare PHR Choice Pilot, which gives beneficiaries in Arizona and Utah the opportunity to have their hospital and medical claims data transmitted to an online personal health record (PHR).
But, a government official acknowledged, the offer to add Medicare claims data directly to a participant`s PHR excludes those from Part D, the prescription drug benefit plan.
"There`s no centralized repository of Part D data to put in at the moment," said Patrick Conway, chief medical officer at the Department of Health and Human Services, speaking from a press conference in Salt Lake City.
"Over time, as with many things at CMS," he said, "we`re going to look at how we can leverage all data to help consumers, including Part D."
In Arizona and Utah, hospital and medical claims for Medicare reimbursement are handled by Noridian Administrative Services LLC.
The North Dakota-based company is the pilot program`s coordinator and, Conway said, will provide Part A and Part B claims data to the PHRs of consenting participants.
He said there are two main methods by which participants in the pilot program can include their medication information in their PHR: if the PHR`s vendor offers the feature, participants can download the information from their pharmacy`s or pharmacy benefit manager`s website to the PHR; or, the participant can enter the data.
The vendors participating in the one-year Medicare PHR Choice Pilot are PassportMD, NoMoreClipboard.com, HealthTrio, and Google. Users, including participants in the pilot program, may have to pay a monthly or annual fee.
HealthTrio is also participating in the one-year pilot program known as My Personal Health Record, South Carolina (MyPHRSC). Since October, Medicare beneficiaries in South Carolina who also have Tricare coverage from the Department of Defense have been able to authorize the transmission of Tricare data, including medication profiles, to their MyPHRSC PHR.
Through the seven-year-old Pharmacy Data Transaction Service, Tricare maintains a centralized data repository of beneficiaries` pharmacy claims data.
