The Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) has developed a multi-year data-sharing partnership with Blue Health Intelligence (BHI), which has medical and pharmacy claims data on more than 190 million Americans.
Launched in 2011, HCCI currently holds one of the largest databases for the commercially insured population, and in 2014 became the first national Qualified Entity entitled to hold Medicare data. HCCI said the deal with BHI would bolster its ability to provide research insights to aid employers, government officials and the public in finding solutions to address healthcare costs.
BHI data represents medical claims from participating Blue Cross and Blue Shield company members, stripped of any identifying information about individuals and employers.
With this new and expanded database, HCCI said it would continue to shed light on trends driving healthcare spending growth, and spark possible solutions. HCCI's data set is one of the few independent sources of information on people who get health insurance through their employers—the largest single source of health coverage for Americans.
"This new partnership with BHI, allied with ongoing support from our legacy partners, guarantees the continued availability of an accessible, trusted resource to better understand and ultimately rein in U.S. healthcare costs,” said Niall Brennan, HCCI president and CEO, in a statement. “We are excited to embark on this new partnership with BHI and commend them for their leadership and commitment to transparency."
In January 2019, HCCI and United Healthcare announced they were sunsetting their data collaboration relationship agreement that has provided United's de-identified insurance claims data for analyses of U.S. healthcare spending, utilization, and market performance. At the time, HCCI said it continued to receive data from its remaining three partners -- Aetna, Humana and Kaiser Permanente.
"HCCI data has become an indispensable source of insight for the nation's leading academic institutions, such as Harvard, Cornell, and Yale, as well as blue-ribbon healthcare analytic organizations, including the Congressional Budget Office, the Federal Trade Commission and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Office of the Actuary," said Robert J. Town, Ph.D., chair of HCCI's governing board, in a statement. "The continued availability and expansion of this data source will allow us to continue to better understand health system performance."
