CMS readies IT, analytics for waves of health reform data

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will have to manage and analyze double the volume of Medicare data and triple the terabytes of Medicaid data after health reform is fully in place. By 2015, the waves of Medicare claims data will explode from 370 terabytes to 700 terabytes. For Medicaid, 30 terabytes of data will multiply to 100 terabytes, according to a CMS official. CMS has been upended by health reform just as providers have, and the agency is transforming how it operates and communicates with physicians and hospitals to be ready for the roll out of the health reform law in 2014.