Partnership Qualifications
To become a MedRIC data partner, you have to:
- be an NIH-sponsored study or survey;
- have obtained legally informed consent from your study or survey participants to link your data to CMS administrative records for research purposes;
- have your study or survey participants' authorization to share their CMS data with CMS- or NIA-authorized researchers outside of your study or survey team; and
- have approval from your Institutional Review Board (IRB) to link your data to CMS administrative records (Note: You will need to submit the IRB approval letter to MedRIC for NIA review and approval.)
If your study or survey is not at least partially funded through NIH, we will not be able to offer our services to you.
If you do not yet have legally informed consent from your participants to link their CMS administrative records to your data, but can integrate that information into future study or survey waves, we may be able to work with you at a future date.
Partnership Tasks
As a MedRIC data partner, you'll need to:
- Establish and maintain a CMS or NIA Data Use Agreement (DUA) to review our Center's CMS data inventory for any security issues, and, if applicable, obtain these data for your own research purposes;
- Provide us with a finder file that enables us to link your study or survey participants to CMS's beneficiary records;
- Update and resubmit your finder file to us, whenever you conduct a new wave of your study or survey; and
- Work with us to collectively authorize researchers access to both your data and our CMS data inventory.
Partnership Benefits
As a MedRIC data partner, you'll:
- Obtain essential CMS data resources—including Medicare Parts A, B, C, & D data, Assessment data, and Medicaid data—at no cost;
- Receive annual updates to your CMS data inventory; and
- Expand the type of research that your study or survey data supports, including enabling your research community to more reliably assess the current health status of your participants.
