Given the state of the opioid crisis, any meaningful data is valuable. So when CMS released three years of Opioid Part D prescription data in November, we all rejoiced. CMS also released a mapping tool to analyze the data. While mapping tools can be effective, they can also get in the way.

 

We recently got under the hood of this data and released a new Opioid Prescribing Rates Interactive. It is automatically available to subscribers as part of our growing Community Health library. An analysis of the data becomes more meaningful when we can actually sort and manipulate the data and relate it to other data such as population.

 

In the video blog, we discuss the following:

  1. Why mapping is not always the best tool for this type of analysis.

  2. Why good old tables present a quick way of analyzing this type of data.

  3. Which counties and states experienced the highest prescribing rates.

 

 

Share This Story

Similar Posts

The Top Graduation Rate Institutions

ByPublic Insight

The character Bluto in the movie Animal House was famous for saying “Seven years of college down the drain”. This was on the heels of Dean Wormer’s pronouncement of his stellar grade point of 0.0. Given this performance, Bluto would not have graduated anyway. Thus, he would not have fallen…

Spring is Here! Which Counties are Physically Active

Spring is Here! Which Counties are Physically Active

ByPublic Insight

I love spring!  As a warm weather person living in the Northeast, I can’t wait to get outside and be physically active. While many are like me, still 29% of the U.S. remains by and large physically inactive and it is very regionally concentrated. The County Health Rankings uses a measure…

Outpatient Medicare Hospital Costs up 13%

Outpatient Medicare Hospital Costs up 13%

ByPublic Insight

The 2016 outpatient procedure data shows overall hospital volume up 11% from 2015. Using data from the Outpatient Procedure Analysis Interactive, we also found that the volume times the average full cost (weighted average cost) on a procedure basis has increased 13.3%. We ran the numbers several ways – first…

12 College Programs with 100+% Growth

12 College Programs with 100+% Growth

ByPublic Insight

Johnny Nash wrote an award winning song in 1972 called “I Can See Clearly Now”. It was one of those one-hit wonders that still is around today. Johnny would be proud to learn that the field of Vision Science and Physiological Optics topped our findings for emerging program growth with…

CMS Releases 2016 Opioid Prescription Data

CMS Releases 2016 Opioid Prescription Data

ByPublic Insight

This week, CMS released 2016 Opioid Part D Prescribing Rates data which follows on the heels of the original release several months ago. This data release includes Opioid prescriber, claims, and extended release claims at the national, state, county, and zip code level. We have updated our Opioid Prescribing Rates…

The Reverse Boom – Counties With Natural Population Decreases

The Reverse Boom – Counties With Natural Population Decreases

ByPublic Insight

Population estimates are now trickling out and will continue to be released by the U.S. Census through next summer. Population estimates take into account births, deaths, and migration. As migration has slowed, demographers have focused more on what is called naturalized increases, which is the excess of births over deaths….