Provider Almanac Design

Provider Almanac uses publicly available information from government agencies and reformats the information into an easy to use format.  The information consists of the following.

• Cost Report data from Center for Medicare/Medicaid Services.
• Medicare Inpatient Discharge data or Medicare Part A.
• Provider of Services data from Center for Medicare/Medicaid Services.

This information is retrieved either by download from websites or ordered and received on CDs.  The information comes in two types of formats.  Vertical data (Cost Reports) has a single data element with a description like worksheet, line number and column.  This format is typical of database storage systems.  Horizontal data (POS/Stock Market) has many data elements in a single record like a hospital record with information on bed counts, FTEs, services offered, etc.  This format is typical of flat file storage. 

The information is processed by the following steps.

• The information is loaded into a database storage container like Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or Visual Foxpro.
• The information is validated for completeness and format.  Control counts are established.
• Documentation is used to create meta data to describe the data in the tables.
• Tables are created to decode the data in the tables.  For example, in the POS tables, a hospital type field may have a value of '1' to describe this hospital as 'Acute Care'.  A table is created to decode this information.  There maybe a number of tables required to decode and describe all the information.
• The converted table, supporting meta data tables and decoding tables are packaged together into a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 database.  This database is prepared for distribution.    

The information in the tables will be available for sale on this website at a future date.  The tables will have fully described and decoded data.

To achieve the maximum value from the Provider Almanac data, software is used to extract the information from these database tables.  There are up to five types of reports.

• Reference Reports in summary and detail format.  In this report, the user selects the provider and a system query is created to extract all available information in the detail format.  The system will save the information in a table for the user.
• Custom Reports  In this report, the user selects the providers and data elements.  The data elements are based on the information in the meta data tables.  A user could select 5 providers and 10 data elements.  The system will create a query to extract the information and save the data in a table for the user.   This report shows the data item by provider.
• Analysis Reports  In this report, the user selects the providers and data elements.  The data elements are based on the information in the meta data tables.  A user could select 5 providers and 10 data elements.  The system will create a query to extract the information and save the data in a table for the user.   This report show the provider information by data item.
• Comparison Reports  In this report, the user selects the providers, data elements and two masters or time periods for comparison.  The results of the query are saved in a table for the user.
• Special Reports  Based on the type of information, special reports are prepared for the user based on user data selection.  The results of these queries are saved for the user.  

In addition to the reports, Provider Almanac will have OLAP cubes or pivot tables.  These cubes will be used for beds, FTEs and financial information.  The cubes are an excellent way to look at data.  Excel can be used to print reports from the pivot tables. 

Provider Almanac has two types of databases.  The main database type is the Permanent Database.  There are many Permanent Databases that consist of information received by CD/DVD.  These databases are read only and password protected.  The passwords are available to owners/users of Provider Almanac.  The other database type is the User Database.  This database is used to save the results of each query and provide the selection files for the user. 

In summary, this is the design of Provider Almanac.  The development of this product has required great effort.  We believe that purchasing Provider Almanac should be based on the value you will receive from using the product.  The time you would spend to get and process this information would be substantial.  We hope this product will save you time and effort and will improve the quality and quantity of your work. 

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