Washington
Category
Title or Name of APCD System
  • Washington Community Checkup
Who Maintains the System
  • Washington Health Alliance
Website
Legal Authority
Investment
  • $1.5 million (initial) and $1.5 million annually
First Year APCD Collected Data
  • 2004
APCD Snapshot
  • Puget Sound Health Alliance kicked off in 2004 by King County Executive Ron Sims in response to concerns about rising health care costs and quality in the delivery of health care services. King County rallied business groups to the table and started the Puget Sound Health Alliance (now called the Washington Health Alliance). The Alliance is a purchaser-led, multi-stakeholder collaborative. One of the initiatives of the Alliance was to develop a claims database. Today, the Alliance’s database comprises approximately 65% of the non-Medicare claims in the region. The database currently captures information from 1/1/2006 through the current year, representing over 4.5 million lives and approximately 1.6 billion claim lines from commercial insurance, managed Medicaid and Medicaid Fee for Service. Since its beginning, the Alliance focused on a 5-county area in the greater Seattle metropolitan area (the Puget Sound region). In late 2013, the Alliance re-branded itself the Washington Health Alliance and expanded its various activities statewide, including performance measurement and public reporting. At present, access to the Alliance’s database by researchers and other interested parties is possible but is quite limited.
Number of Commercial Sources of Claims Data
  • 36
Covered Lives
  • 4.5 million
Sources and Status of APCD Data Collection
Payers
Commercial Payers
  • Currently Collected
Third Party Administrators/Self-Funded
  • Currently Collected
Medicaid
  • Currently Collected
Types of Data Collected 
Medical Claims
  • Currently Collected
Eligibility
  • Currently Collected
Pharmacy
  • Currently Collected
Other
  • Vision claims are currently collected.
Primary Users/Uses
  • Washington State Common Measure Set, Choosing Wisely, quality reporting, resource use measurement, utilization, episodes, and geographic/racial differences. Pricing data are now included in routine data submissions with price variation reporting coming soon. Primary users are purchasers, providers, health plans, consumers, and other industry stakeholders.
Consumer Website
State Specific Resources
Contact Information

  • For more information on Washington's voluntary APCD effort, please contact Mark Pregler, Director of Performance Measurement with the Washington Health Alliance at mpregler@wahealthalliance.org.