Overview

Healthcare Almanac is a family of three software products.  Healthcare Almanac is a source of business intelligence for the healthcare professionals.  The goal of these products is to provide accurate publicly available healthcare data, analytical software to analyze the data and projection of future healthcare demand.

• Provider Almanac - currently available with data through December 2008.
• Population Almanac - in development.
• Healthcare Almanac - future product.

Provider Almanac has five years of data for healthcare consultants, financial analyst, marketing, strategic planning and contracting.  The data is primarily Medicare cost reports and Medicare inpatient discharges.  Population Almanac is for consultants, strategic planning and marketing.  The data includes the last five years of population and the last thirty years of the population census.     The final almanac is Healthcare Almanac.  This almanac is a projection and forecasting system of data contained in Provider and Population Almanacs.  The healthcare utilization of the United States is projected over the next fifteen years.  The national projection is divided into market areas and then projected or allocated to each provider based on current and projected market share. 

The almanacs are based on databases that are accessed over the interent or stored on your desktop computer.  The software can produce printed reports and PDF reports.  The report data can be exported to Excel and Word.  In the future, the data will be available in Pivot Tables for Excel 2007. 

Provider Almanac

Provider Almanac has five years of data for healthcare contracting, public relations, marketing and consultants.  The almanac provides complete detailed information for all Medicare/Medicaid healthcare providers and suppliers.   The main group of financial information is obtained from CMS - Center for Medicare/Medicaid Services.  This information is the Medicare Cost Reports, discharge data for Part A, POS - Provider of Service information and UPIN/NPI - Universal Physician Identification Number information.  The cost reports provide financial information for hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, hospice and End Stage Renal Dialysis (ESRD) facilities.  The discharge data has cases, days, DRG payment and charges for each hospital.  The POS information shows patient services, employee counts, bed counts and current status of compliance with CMS regulations.  

In the future, new information will be added to Provider Almanac.  Healthcare not-for-profit organizations are required to file 990 form tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service.   You can obtain this information from Guide Star for all not for profit businesses.  Healthcare companies that have publicly traded stocks are also available.  This information is obtained from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for all government information filings.  All stock market trade and quote information will be available for the last five years.     

Provider Almanac    

Population Almanac (In Development)

Population Almanac is demographic information about the service area of a healthcare provider. Healthcare providers usually operate in a defined geographic area.  Many healthcare services are based on the age and sex of the patient/person.  This almanac provides complete detailed information on the age, sex, household status and analytical information for the last thirty years.  This information is available by state, county, MSA, city/place and zip code/ZTAC.  This information is obtained from the Census Bureau in the STF-1 and STF-3 files. The US Postal Service provides postal delivery statistics that show all households and businesses by postal delivery route in a zip code. The Census Bureau publishes the American Community Survey to provide statistically valid information for current demographic changes.  The Census Bureau provides the Population Survey each year that shows the new population counts and new demographic information.  The Commerce Department data is getting more complete data each year by releasing information on healthcare revenue, investment and employment.  Other sources of information include the building permit data that shows all new residential construction by permitting authority.

Population Almanac 

This Almanac may be available by February 28, 2009.

Healthcare Almanac (Future Product)

Healthcare Almanac is the final almanac.  This almanac is a projection or forecast of healthcare utilization for the United States for the next 15 years.  The population estimates are from the Census Bureau.  The population estimates are available at the county level and allocated by formula to zip codes and city/places.  All utilization rates are straight-line projections of current information from Provider Almanac and Population Almanac.  The straight line projections can be altered to forecast based on expected trends in healthcare for your service area. 

The overall formula for projecting healthcare utilization is based on using the Census Bureau population forecast by age and sex in each county.  These age/sex cohorts will be extended by the DRG utilization rates.  The revenue for healthcare will be calculated by the projected DRG payment rates.  The Cost Reports in Provider Almanac will be used to determine the provider market share in a service area.  The market share percentage is used to determine the projected revenue of the hospital.  The projection method has a number of variables;  population growth, DRG use rate, DRG payment rate, market share percentage.  The final projection will have the cases, days and revenue for each provider.  The user will be able to change the projection methods to a forecasted rate.

 Healthcare Almanac