Chronic Condition Data Warehouse (CCW) Data Available

CCW Chronic Conditions | CCW RIF Data Available

The CCW data include claims, enrollment, and assessment data and can be linked by beneficiary across years and files. CCW data files can be extracted for a set of 21 predefined chronic health conditions. To read more about the CCW, please see the CCW User Manual.

CCW Chronic Conditions

Researchers may request CCW data for any or all of the 21 predefined chronic conditions as defined by CMS. The chronic disease algorithms include specific criteria for reference time periods (searching one to up to three years), diagnosis and procedure codes, number and type of qualifying claims (i.e., must have 2 Carrier claims during reference time period) and coverage (must have Part A and Part B coverage).

These common chronic disease classifications include the following (see Attachment A of the CCW User Manual for complete definitions):

Acute Myocardial Infarction
Alzheimer's Disease
Alzheimer's Disease, Related Disorders, or Senile Dementia
Atrial Fibrillation
Cataract
Chronic Kidney Disease
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
Depression
Diabetes
Glaucoma
Heart Failure
Hip/Pelvic Fracture
Ischemic Heart Disease
Osteoporosis
Rheumatoid arthritis/ Osteoarthritis (RA/OA)
Stroke / Transient Ischemic Attack
Breast Cancer
Colorectal Cancer
Prostate Cancer
Lung Cancer
Endometrial Cancer

For more information about the number of beneficiaries found in the CCW data files by chronic condition, please see the CCW Summary Statistics website.

CCW Research Identifiable Files (RIFs):

The CCW data are considered RIFs, which contain person-specific data on Medicare providers, beneficiaries, and recipients including individual identifiers that would permit the identity of a beneficiary or physician to be deduced (e.g., date of birth, age, race, sex, residence information).

Data with beneficiary or physician identifiers are subject to the Privacy Act, Freedom of Information Act and other Federal government rules and regulations. As such, the information is confidential and is to be used only for reasons compatible with the purpose(s) for which the data are collected.

CMS employs strict security measures to safeguard individual privacy. CMS data release policies seek to ensure that files containing physician and/or beneficiary identifiers are used only when necessary and in accordance with disclosure provisions of the Privacy Act.

Researchers need to submit to CMS a data request packet.

Last Modified June 25, 2009