In this chapter from its 2011 inaugural report, the Commission notes that although Medicaid and State Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) data provide information to answer key policy and accountability questions, there is no single Medicaid and CHIP data source. As a result, comprehensive analyses of the programs require data from states, CMS, surveys, and other sources.
However, there have been longstanding challenges regarding state-reported data variability, comparability, consistency, and timeliness that date back to the enactment of the programs. Different Medicaid and CHIP information is collected from states at different times for different purposes, resulting in multiple federal administrative data sets. Often federal data sets have overlapping content, with states reporting the same information about their Medicaid and CHIP programs more than once. In addition to redundancies, gaps in the data sources also exist which ultimately limit their usefulness. Read more about major federal sources of administrative data for the Medicaid and CHIP program, and how these data are used to address policy and program accountability issues.
From: March 2011 Report to the Congress on Medicaid and CHIP