What’s New With the Arkansas Healthcare Transparency Initiative

The Arkansas Healthcare Transparency Initiative is debuting some new features in 2020.

Created under the Arkansas Healthcare Transparency Initiative Act of 2015, the initiative is an effort to bring greater transparency to Arkansas’s healthcare system. A major component of the initiative is the Arkansas All-Payer Claims Database (APCD), a large-scale database containing health insurance claims data submitted by public and private payers and a variety of health data obtained from the Arkansas Department of Health, as explained in this infographic. ACHI maintains the database with oversight from the Arkansas Insurance Department.

Data in the APCD

New Features

One change for 2020 is that we will make quarterly instead of semiannual updates to the database, in an effort to make more recent data available. The first quarterly update is now complete, and the new data are available for use. The table below shows our schedule of updates for the year and how recent the most recent available data will be for each type.

Note: The data go back to Jan. 1, 2013, for all types except medical marijuana cardholders. That information goes back to August 2018.

Also new this year are online, searchable data dictionaries and tip sheets to help data requesters in their selection and use of key data elements supporting their research.

For more information, or to obtain a data request form, visit the Arkansas APCD’s website or contact the technical support team at support@achiapcd.atlassian.net.