CMS issues Medicare disparities mapping tool

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Office of Minority Health today released a tool showing geographic, racial and ethnic variation in hospitalizations, emergency department visits and readmissions for Medicare beneficiaries with certain chronic conditions, as well as variation in the prevalence and average cost of those conditions. “We are excited to share this new tool, which allows us to pinpoint disparities in health care outcomes by population and condition,” said CMS OMH Director Cara James. The Mapping Medicare Disparities Tool was developed in collaboration with KPMG and NORC at the University of Chicago as part of CMS’s Equity Plan for Improving Quality in Medicare.