CMS extends Medicare-Tricare PHR test
By Peter Buxbaum
Thursday, March 11, 2010
A personal health record pilot in South Carolina, which incorporates both Medicare and military Tricare claims data, has been extended through Sept. 30, 2010.
The Internet-based My Personal Health Record-South Carolina (MyPHRSC), a Medicare project, provides its 4,500 participants 24 months of Medicare A and B claims history and 24 months of Tricare pharmacy data upon request.
The pilot went live in April 2008 and began incorporating Tricare data in January 2009. In July, 2009 a calendar reminder feature, and a Health Tracker tool were added to the PHR.
"The Health Tracker allows users to track their blood pressure, cholesterol, hemoglobin A1C, and weight in a graph or table format," said Chris Gayhead, a project officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
The number of participants "exceeded our expectations," said Gayhead. Six-hundred sixty thousand South Carolina Medicare beneficiaries are eligible to participate in MyPHRSC. Tricare beneficiaries who are Medicare eligible can authorize to have their Tricare data incorporated in the PHR.
For Gayhead, the number of MyPHRSC participants validates the notion that Medicare beneficiaries are interested in PHRs.
"We're looking to the future," she said, "to the next generation coming into Medicare which would most likely be acquainted with PHRs and will look to having a PHR to access their Medicare data."
The goals of the Medicare pilot are to test outreach methods, study adoption of the tool and development an understanding of what features seniors find useful in PHRs, according to Gayhead.
A decision to make the project permanent will involve an evaluation of "whether this fits into our overall and ongoing strategy," she said. "After further evaluation of this pilot, in conjunction with other pilots running concurrently, CMS will determine next steps for PHRs."
CMS has other PHR projects running in Arizona and Utah.
