The Dartmouth Atlas of Medicare Prescription Drug Use

<h2>Overview</h2>
<p>The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice (TDI) has created a publicly available source of data that provides researchers, payers, regulators, and innovators with metrics that quantify temporal and regional patterns of health care spending and utilization in the United States. Using CMS Medicare claims data (mostly for age >64 enrollees), Atlas researchers built cohorts (“denominators”) and numerous measures or events (“numerators”) which were then used to calculate rates either by geography or for patients assigned to specific hospitals. These rates, which are calculated consistently across time and place, provide researchers with opportunities to evaluate spatial and temporal variation/trends. </p>

<p>This entry contains prescription drug use and spending rates for fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare beneficiaries with Part D coverage in 2010. Examples include total Part D spending per beneficiary, percentage of 30-day prescriptions filled with brand-name products, and percentage of beneficiaries filling at least one prescription for a high-risk medication. Rates are also provided for three specific cohorts (diabetes, acute myocardial infarction (AMI), and fragility fracture), including utilization rates for specific medications relevant to each cohort (e.g., beta-blocker prescriptions following an AMI). Rates are provided at the state, hospital referral region (HRR), and hospital service area (HSA) levels. See related publication for details regarding risk adjustment.<p>

<p>Users downloading data should review the methods sections of the related
publication for context. All reports in the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care series are available from the National Library of Medicine <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK584737/"> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK584737/ </a></p>