New database aims to show how health care dollars used

PORTLAND – Information from the health insurance claims of hundreds of thousands of Mainers is being entered into a vast, new database created to provide a more detailed picture of how health care dollars are being spent in Maine.

The Maine Health Care Claims Data Bank is projected to capture between 30 million and 50 million health claims from insurance companies and third-party administrators by the end of this year.

The nonprofit organization has been developing and managing the database with the Maine Health Data Organization, a state agency, after the project was approved by state lawmakers in June 2001. The database was launched this winter.

The goal of the project is to provide policy-makers, health care advocates and consumers with comprehensive, up-to-date health data on the health care practices of privately insured people in Maine.

“This is just going to provide a tremendous wealth of new information on how Maine people use health care and how much we pay for it and, over time, which areas of health care are growing and why,” said James Harnar, executive director of the Maine Health Information Center.

Confidentiality is protected by expunging identifying information such as names, addresses and phone numbers, said Al Prysunka, executive director of the Maine Health Data Organization.

“Anything that directly identifies you would not be included,” he said.

Similar databases are operated in Maine and elsewhere by Medicaid managers, hospitals and state health officials. Business coalitions share information on tens of millions of employee claims.

But the new database is different in that it offers a broad look into the health practices of every single person who is privately insured in the state – estimated to be more than half of the population.

Prysunka said it is hoped that information on Medicare patients will be added in the coming year.