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Greater continuity of the physical therapy provider appears to be associated with a decreased likelihood of surgical treatment for LBP and lower health care costs related to LBP.

Objective To evaluate the linkage of claims from the Utah All Payers Claims Database (APCD) and Utah Cancer Registry (UCR). Data Sources Secondary data from 2013 and 2014 Utah APCD and 2013 UCR cases. Study Design This is a descriptive analysis of the quality of linkage between APCD claims data and cancer registry cases. Data Collection/Extraction Methods We used the LinkPlus software to link Utah APCD and UCR data. Principal Findings We were able to link 82.4 percent (9441/11 453) of the UCR reportable cancer cases with APCD claims. Of those linked, 66 percent were perfect matches. Conclusions The quality of identifiers is high, evidence that claims data can potentially supplement cancer registry data for use in research.

Purpose Incompleteness of treatment data is a recognized limitation of cancer registry data. An all-payer claims database (APCD) is a tool that states use to capture health care information across systems and payer. We linked the Utah Cancer Registry (UCR) records to Utah’s statewide APCD and evaluated how this linkage led to improvements in the capture of cancer treatment information. Methods We linked cancers diagnosed and reported to the UCR with Utah APCD claims for the calendar years 2013 and 2014 using LinkPlus Software. For patients with breast or colorectal cancers, manual abstraction was completed to provide a gold-standard comparison for the treatment data obtained from the claims. Results Among 10,759 reportable cancer occurrences linked to the APCD, the claims identified additional patients with cancer who received therapies that had been unknown to the registry, increasing the proportion treated with chemotherapy from 23.7% to 27.6%, hormone therapy from 14.1% to 18.8%, immunotherapy from 4.3% to 13.2%, and radiation therapy from 24.9% to 27.5%. The APCD increased the sensitivity of treatment variables compared with the abstraction gold standard. Notably, sensitivity of hormonal therapy for breast cancer increased from 78.6% to 95.2% when augmented with APCD claims data. However, the APCD alone did not achieve as high specificity for treatment data as did the data collected through traditional registry methods. Conclusions This is the first study, to our knowledge, showing that linking cancer registry data with a statewide claims database that covers multiple insurance companies improves cancer treatment data collection. Linking of cancer registry and APCD data can improve comprehensiveness of cancer registry treatment data.

CDC’s National Environmental Public Health Tracking Program (Tracking Program) receives administrative data annually from 25–30 states to track potential environmental exposures and to make data available for public access. In 2019, the CDC Tracking Program conducted a cross-sectional survey among principal investigators or program managers of the 26 funded programs to improve access to timely, accurate, and local data. All 26 funding recipients reported having access to hospital inpatient data, and most states (69.2%) regularly update data user agreements to receive the data. Among the respondents, 15 receive record-level data with protected health information (PHI) and seven receive record-level data without PHI. Regarding geospatial resolution, approximately 50.0% of recipients have access to the street address or census tract information, 34.6% have access to ZIP code, and 11.5% have other sub-county geographies (e.g., town). Only three states receive administrative data for their residents from all border states. The survey results will help the Tracking Program to identify knowledge gaps and perceived barriers to the use and accessibility of administrative data for the CDC Tracking Program. The information collected will inform the development of resources that can provide solutions for more efficient and timely data exchange.