Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Health Data Vcures Buds topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Green Mountain Care Board outlines VCURES and BUDS data assets, timeline for key reports
Summary
GMCB staff described the state's all-payer claims database (VCURES) and hospital discharge database (BUDS), data coverage, reporting cadence and upcoming reports including a targeted price-transparency update due mid-2025 and hospital discharge reports estimated later in 2025.
Lindsey Veil, deputy director of data and analytics at the Green Mountain Care Board, told the House Health Care Committee on Feb. 6 that the board stewards two statewide data assets: VCURES, the Vermont all-payer claims database (APCD), and BUDS, the Vermont hospital discharge database.
Veil said VCURES includes claims for medical, pharmacy and dental services, covers 100% of Medicaid and Medicare beneficiaries and about 60% of commercially insured beneficiaries, and contains longitudinal data beginning in 2007. She said VCURES medical tables contain tens of millions of rows per year and that Medicare data streams currently have an eight-month delay.
Why it matters: VCURES and BUDS are the data foundations for the board's analytic work supporting certificate-of-need reviews, hospital budget review, price-transparency studies and broader health-resource planning.
Key details and timelines: Veil said VCURES is built from insurer, third-party administrator and PBM submissions aggregated by the board's contractor, OnPoint Health Data, and is made available in a secure research environment. She said the board receives data quarterly, with Medicare data lagging. Specific upcoming reports she named included a refreshed price-transparency study targeted for June 2025 and an updated total-cost-of-care report with 2023 and preliminary 2024 estimates; the board estimated some BUDS-derived reports (hospital discharge and expenditure analyses) would be released later in 2025, including a December 2025 target for a 2023 total-cost-of-care update.
BUDS specifics: Veil said BUDS contains annual inpatient and outpatient discharge files for all Vermont hospitals, including visits by nonresidents and self-pay, and totals roughly 2 million rows per year. She said the board is taking over BUDS data management from the Vermont Department of Health and will use it to produce the annual hospital report.
Analytic uses: Veil said VCURES underpins the board's reference-based pricing study and other analyses of price and reimbursement variation; she confirmed that prior reference-based pricing work used the APCD. The board also uses these data to support CON analytics, hospital budget review, the annual hospital report, the health resource allocation plan (HRAP) and Act 167 community engagement reporting.
Staffing and governance notes: Veil introduced other staff on the call, including Kate O'Neil (director of prescription drug pricing) and Steve Andrews (director), and described the board's internal "A team" of analysts that manage data governance, data quality, access, and contracted analytics.
Ending note: Veil said the board will continue to update stakeholders on report timing and that some deliverables are delayed because of EMR transitions and expanded data collection requirements.
