Hospital Inpatient and Outpatient Data

Hospitals must file with the MHDO a completed hospital inpatient and outpatient data set for every service provided to each patient. See Rule Chapter 241 on our Rules and Statutes page for a complete definition of the data which must be submitted, and by which hospitals.

For those involved with the submission of hospital data, please see the Hospital Data Submitters page.

Available Datasets

See the MHDO Data Dictionary regarding which elements are available for hospital encounter data.

In addition you may review the specific set of validations the hospital data are measured against before the MHDO accepts into our database.

If you are interested in requesting data, our Request Data or Reports page has all the information you need.

About the MHDO Hospital Data Dictionary

The data dictionary is an interactive tool designed to assist data users with understanding the content, format and structure of the MHDO Hospital Inpatient and Outpatient Data Sets. The Hospital Data Dictionary is integrated with the APCD Data Dictionary and available here: https://mhdo.maine.gov/mhdo-data-dictionary/search. The data dictionary is designed to support users in:

  • Improved navigation of the data elements
  • Understanding relationships between data elements and which elements are included with each type of data release
  • Access to underlying code sets

Recent Releases

Note: Expected release dates of hospital inpatient and outpatient encounter data can be found on our Data Release Schedules page.

The release version information can be found in two separate tables.

Note: As part of the release, all users were provided the link to the Hospital Encounter Data section of the FAQ web page and the link to the Hospital Data Dictionary.

8/12/24 Q4 2023 Outpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Outpatient Release Version 29 along with notes 60 thru 62 below.

7/26/24 Q4 2023 Inpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Inpatient Release Version 41 along with notes 68 and 69 below.

4/11/24 Q3 2023 Outpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Outpatient Release Version 28 along with notes 57 thru 59 below.

4/1/24 Q3 2023 Inpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Inpatient Release Version 40 along with notes 66 and 67 below.

12/29/23 Q2 2023 Outpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Outpatient Release Version 27 along with notes 54 thru 56 below.

12/15/23 Q2 2023 Inpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Inpatient Release Version 39 along with notes 64 and 65 below.

10/6/23 Q1 2023 Outpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Outpatient Release Version 26 along with notes 50 thru 53 below.

9/26/23 Q1 2023 Inpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Inpatient Release Version 38 along with notes 62 and 63 below.

10/6/23 Q4 2022 Outpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Outpatient Release Version 25 along with notes 46 thru 49 below.

6/14/23 Q4 2022 Inpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Inpatient Release Version 37 along with notes 60 and 61 below.

4/4/23 Q3 2022 Outpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Outpatient Release Version 24 along with notes 43-45 below.

3/14/23 Q3 2022 Inpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Inpatient Release Version 36 along with notes 58 and 59 below.

1/3/23 Q2 2022 Outpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Outpatient Release Version 23 along with notes 39-42 below.

12/16/22 Q2 2022 Inpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Inpatient Release Version 35 along with notes 56 and 57 below.

10/21/22 Q1 2022 Outpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Outpatient Release Version 22 along with notes 36-38 below.

9/26/22 Q1 2022 Inpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Inpatient Release Version 34 along with notes 53-55 below.

7/19/22 Q4 2021 Outpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Outpatient Release Version 21 along with notes 33-35 below.

6/23/22 Q4 2021 Inpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Inpatient Release Version 33 along with notes 50-51 below.

3/29/22 Q3 2021 Outpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Outpatient Release Version 20 along with notes 30-32 below.

3/10/22 Q3 2021 Inpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Inpatient Release Version 32 along with notes 48 & 49 below.

1/14/22 Q2 2021 Outpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Outpatient Release Version 19 along with notes 26-29 below.

12/21/21 Q2 2021 Inpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Inpatient Release Version 31 along with notes 46 & 47 below.

10/8/21 Q1 2021 Outpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Outpatient Release Version 18 along with notes 21-25 below.

10/8/21 CY 2019 Mount Desert Island Hospital Resubmitted Outpatient Data Released

See Outpatient Release Version 17 along with note 20 below.

9/17/21 Q1 2021 Inpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Inpatient Release Version 30 along with notes 43-45 below.

7/2/21 CY2020 Outpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Outpatient Release Version 12 along with notes 15-19 below.

6/10/21 Q4 2020 Inpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Inpatient Release Version 29 along with notes 39-42 below.

3/16/21 Q3 2020 Inpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Inpatient Release Version 26 & 27 along with notes 35-38 below.

12/11/20 Q1 and Q2 2020 Inpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Inpatient Release Version 25 along with notes below.

8/24/20 CY2019 Outpatient Hospital Encounter DataReleased

See Outpatient Release Version 11 along with notesbelow.

6/22/20 Q4 2019 Inpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Inpatient Release Version 24 along with notes below.

3/11/20Q3 2019 Inpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Inpatient Release Version 23 along with notes below.

12/13/19Q2 2019 Inpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Inpatient Release Version 22 along with notes below.

10/21/19Q1 2019 Inpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Inpatient Release Version 21 along with notes below.

7/12/19CY2018 Outpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Outpatient Release Versions 6, 7, 8, & 9 along with their notes below.

5/28/19Q3 and Q4 2018 Inpatient Hospital EncounterData Released

See Inpatient Release Versions 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 and the notes below.
Also provided to the users as part of the release was the newly available MHDO Hospital Inpatient: Quality Control check list.

12/21/18Q2 2018 Inpatient Hospital Encounter DataReleased

See Inpatient Release Versions 14 and 15 and the notes below.
Also provided to the users as part of the release was the newly available MHDO Hospital Inpatient: Quality Control check list.

10/26/18Q1 2018 Inpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Inpatient Release Version 13 Note ID 9 below.

7/11/18CY2017 Outpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Outpatient Release Version 5 Note ID's 1-4 below.
A link to the Hospital Encounter Data section of the FAQ web page was provided to the users as part of the release.
In addition, a link to the newly launched Hospital Data Dictionary at https://mhdo.maine.gov/mhdo-data-dictionary/search, which is now integrated with the APCD Data Dictionary, was made available.

6/1/18 Q4 2017 Inpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Inpatient Release Version 11 Note ID 8 below.
A link to the Hospital Encounter Data section of the FAQ web page was also provided.

3/2/18 Q3 2017 Inpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Inpatient Release Version 10 Note ID 7 below.
A link to the Hospital Encounter Data section of the FAQ web page (updated) was also provided.

12/1/17 2017 Q1 & Q2 Inpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released

See Inpatient Release Version 6 Note ID 5 below.
A link to the Hospital Encounter Data section of the FAQ web page (updated) was also provided.

Prior Releases can be found below the outpatient encounter release notes table near the bottom of this page.

Hospital Inpatient Encounter Release Notes

Note: As part of the release, all users were provided the link to the Hospital Encounter Data section of the FAQ web page and the link to the Hospital Data Dictionary.

Note ID Release Version Note Text Start Data Year End Data Year
68 41 2023 Q4 Inpatient Release 41

This release contains October-December (Q4) 2023 Hospital Inpatient Encounter data for Maine hospitals per the data submission requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets; and the data release requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 120, Release of Data to the Public. As defined in Rule Chapter 241, MHDO’s Hospital Inpatient Data pertains to the information generated at the time of discharge which is associated with patients who are provided with room, board, and continuous nursing service based on a physician’s written order in an area of the hospital where patients generally stay more than twenty-four hours. Whereas MHDO’s Hospital Outpatient Data pertains to the data generated for any patient visit that is not considered an inpatient admission, at any department of the hospital, regardless of its physical location. MHDO’s Hospital Outpatient Data also includes services provided by specialty groups or primary care practices when the hospital owns the data.
10/01/2023 12/31/2023
69 41 Inpatient Release 41: 2023 Q4 Hospital Specific Notes

Total Volume in the Inpatient Files: MHDO compared the hospitals inpatient encounter volume for Q4 2023 against Q3 2023 and flagged changes equal to or greater than 20%.

Increase in Admissions: There are no hospitals in this quarter with more than or equal to a 20% change in encounter volume when compared to the previous quarter.

Decrease in Admissions:

Northern Light C.A. Dean Hospital (200023) experienced a 34% decrease in 2023 Q4, which equates to a decrease of 14 admissions compared to 2023 Q3. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

York Hospital (200020) experienced a 32% decrease in 2023 Q4, which equates to a decrease of 222 admissions compared to 2023 Q3. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting, citing the main reason being the closure of their Birthing Unit at the end of September.

ED Volume in the Inpatient Files: MHDO compared the volume of ED records submitted against that of the previous quarter's submission. If there is a 20% or more difference the file is flagged for review and explanation.

There are no hospitals in this quarter with more than or equal to a 20% change in the volume of ED records when compared to the previous quarter.
10/01/2023 12/31/2023
66 40 2023 Q3 Inpatient Release 40

This release contains July - September (Q3) 2023 Hospital Inpatient Encounter data for Maine hospitals per the data submission requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets; and the data release requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 120, Release of Data to the Public. As defined in Rule Chapter 241, MHDO’s Hospital Inpatient Data pertains to the information generated at the time of discharge which is associated with patients who are provided with room, board, and continuous nursing service based on a physician’s written order in an area of the hospital where patients generally stay more than twenty-four hours. Whereas MHDO’s Hospital Outpatient Data pertains to the data generated for any patient visit that is not considered an inpatient admission, at any department of the hospital, regardless of its physical location.MHDO’s Hospital Outpatient Data also includes services provided by specialty groups or primary care practices when the hospital owns the data.
7/01/2023 9/30/2023
67 40 Inpatient Release 40: 2023 Q3 Hospital Specific Notes

MHDO compared the hospitals inpatient encounter volume for Q3 2023 against Q2 2023, and flagged changes equal to or greater than 20%.

Increase in Admissions:

Northern Light Blue Hill Hospital (200051) experienced a 53% increase in 2023 Q3, which equates to an increase of 36 admissions compared to 2023 Q2. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

Northern Light C.A. Dean Hospital (200023) experienced a 24% increase in 2023 Q3, which equates to an increase of 8 admissions compared to 2023 Q2. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

Northern Light Maine Coast Hospital (200050) experienced a 25% increase in 2023 Q3, which equates to an increase of 101 admissions compared to 2023 Q2. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

Northern Light Sebasticook Valley Hospital (200028) experienced a 31% increase in 2023 Q3, which equates to an increase of 50 admissions compared to 2023 Q2. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

Decrease in Admissions:

Penobscot Valley Hospital (200062) experienced a 28% decrease in 2023 Q3, which equates to a decrease of 20 admissions compared to 2023 Q2. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

ED Volume in the Inpatient Files: MHDO compared the volume of ED records submitted against that of the previous quarter's submission. If there is a 20% or more difference the file is flagged for review and explanation.

Calais Regional Hospital (200055) has a reduction of 19 ED encounters reported in the inpatient encounters in 2023 Q3 compared to 2023 Q2. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

Mount Desert Island Hospital (200038) has a reduction of 25 ED encounters in 2023 Q3 compared to 2023 Q2. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

Northern Light Blue Hill Hospital (200051) has an increase of 70 ED encounters in 2023 Q3 compared to 2023 Q2. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

Northern Light C.A. Dean Hospital (200023) has an increase of 37 ED encounters in 2023 Q3 compared to 2023 Q2. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

Northern Light Sebasticook Valley Hospital (200028) has an increase of 114 ED encounters in 2023 Q3 compared to 2023. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.
7/01/2023 9/30/2023
64 39 2023 Q2 Inpatient Release 39

This release contains April - June (Q2) 2023 Hospital Inpatient Encounter data for Maine hospitals per the data submission requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets; and the data release requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 120, Release of Data to the Public. As defined in Rule Chapter 241, MHDO’s Hospital Inpatient Data pertains to the information generated at the time of discharge which is associated with patients who are provided with room, board, and continuous nursing service based on a physician’s written order in an area of the hospital where patients generally stay more than twenty-four hours. Whereas MHDO’s Hospital Outpatient Data pertains to the data generated for any patient visit that is not considered an inpatient admission, at any department of the hospital, regardless of its physical location. MHDO’s Hospital Outpatient Data also includes services provided by specialty groups or primary care practices when the hospital owns the data.
04/01/2023 06/30/2023
65 39 Inpatient Release 39: 2023 Q2 Hospital Specific Notes

Total Volume Quality Check: MHDO compared the hospitals inpatient encounter volume for Q2 2023 against Q1 2023, and flagged changes equal to or greater than 20%.

Increase in Admissions:

Riverview Psychiatric Center (200056) experienced a 23% increase in 2023 Q2, which equates to a decrease of 8 encounters compared to 2023 Q1. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

Decrease in Admissions:

Northern Light Blue Hill Hospital (200051) experienced a 26% decrease in 2023 Q2, which equates to a decrease of 24 encounters compared to 2023 Q1. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

Northern Light Sebasticook Valley Hospital (200028) experienced a 21% decrease in 2023 Q2, which equates to a decrease of 43 encounters compared to 2023 Q1. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

Northern Maine Medical Center (200052) experienced a 22% decrease in 2023 Q2, which equates to a decrease of 88 encounters compared to 2023 Q1. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

Penobscot Valley Hospital (200062) experienced a 23% decrease in 2023 Q2, which equates to a decrease of 21 encounters compared to 2023 Q1. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

ED Volume Quality Check: Data submission files are evaluated by a data intake validation which checks the volume of ED records in the file compared against that of the previous quarter's file. If there is a 20% or more difference the file is flagged for review and explanation.

Houlton Regional Hospital (200026) has a reduction of 60 ED encounters for Medicare, Medicare Advantage, and Medicaid. The ED encounters for these payers that were previously reported in the inpatient file and are now reported in the outpatient file.
04/01/2023 06/30/2023
62 38 2023 Q1 Inpatient Release 38

This release contains January - March (Q1) 2023 Hospital Inpatient Encounter data for Maine hospitals per the data submission requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets; and the data release requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 120, Release of Data to the Public. As defined in Rule Chapter 241, MHDO’s Hospital Inpatient Data pertains to the information generated at the time of discharge which is associated with patients who are provided with room, board, and continuous nursing service based on a physician’s written order in an area of the hospital where patients generally stay more than twenty-four hours. Whereas MHDO’s Hospital Outpatient Data pertains to the data generated for any patient visit that is not considered an inpatient admission, at any department of the hospital, regardless of its physical location. MHDO’s Hospital Outpatient Data also includes services provided by specialty groups or primary care practices when the hospital owns the data.
01/01/2023 03/31/2023
63 38 Inpatient Release 38: 2023 Q1 Hospital Specific Notes

General Notes:

St. Mary's Regional Medical Center (200034) OB and Nursery services/practice closed in 7/1/2022. As a result, there has been a decrease in admissions since 2022 Q3. During 2023 Q1 this equates to a decrease of 848 encounters compared to the average over the previous four quarters.

Redington-Fairview General Hospital (200012) previously had an ER volume for 2022 Q4 with 45.8 percentage points Higher than 2021 overall. MHDO processed a resubmission from the payer to correct the shift in volume which dropped to 0.3% percentage points Higher than 2021 overall. These data will be made available to data users as requested. The resubmitted data can be made available to data users as requested.

Total Volume Quality Check: MHDO compared the hospitals inpatient encounter volume for Q1 2023 against Q4 2022, and flagged changes equal to or greater than 20%.

Increases in Admissions:

Calais Regional Hospital (200055) experienced a 42% increase in 2023 Q1, which equates to an increase of 22 encounters compared to 2022 Q4. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Hospital (200057) experienced a 50% increase in 2023 Q1, which equates to an increase of 15 encounters compared to 2022 Q4. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

Penobscot Valley Hospital (200003) experienced a 37% increase in 2023 Q1, which equates to an increase of 25 encounters compared to 2022 Q4. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

Decreases in Admissions:

Riverview Psychiatric Center (200056) experienced a 24% decrease in 2023 Q1, which equates to a decrease of 11 encounters compared to 2022 Q4. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

ED Volume Quality Check: MHDO has modified the approach for checking ED volume by quarter. Data submission files are evaluated by a data intake validation which checks the volume of ED records in the file compared against that of the previous quarter's file. If there is a 20% or more difference the file is flagged for review and explanation. Previously, MHDO did a secondary check which compared each hospital's current ED percentage against their prior year's overall ED percentage. Differences of 10 percentage points or more are flagged. Going forward we will only be reporting issues flagged by the data intake validation.

No issues were flagged during Q1 2023.
01/01/2023 03/31/2023
60 37 2022 Q4 Inpatient Release 37

This release contains October-December (Q4) 2022 Hospital Inpatient Encounter data for Maine hospitals per the data submission requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets; and the data release requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 120, Release of Data to the Public. As defined in Rule Chapter 241, MHDO’s Hospital Inpatient Data pertains to the information generated at the time of discharge which is associated with patients who are provided with room, board, and continuous nursing service based on a physician’s written order in an area of the hospital where patients generally stay more than twenty-four hours. MHDO’s Hospital Outpatient Data on the other hand pertains to the data generated for any patient visit that is not considered an inpatient admission, at any department of the hospital, regardless of its physical location. MHDO’s Hospital Outpatient Data also includes services provided by specialty groups or primary care practices when the hospital owns the data.
10/01/2022 12/31/2022
61 37 Inpatient Release 37: 2022 Q4 Hospital Specific Notes

Total Volume Quality Check: MHDO compared the hospitals encounter volume for Q4 2022 against the previous quarter submitted, Q3 2022, and flagged changes equal to or greater than 20%.

Increases in Admissions

Cary Medical Center (200031) experienced a 25% increase in 2022 Q4, which equates to an increase of 65 encounters, compared to 2022 Q3. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

Franklin Memorial Hospital (200037) experienced a 21% increase in 2022 Q4, which equates to an increase of 92 encounters, compared to 2022 Q3. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

Millinocket Regional Hospital (200003) experienced a 36% increase in 2022 Q4, which equates to an increase of 37 encounters compared to 2022 Q3. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

Northern Light Acadia Hospital (200004) experienced a 21% increase in 2022 Q4, which equates to an increase of 72 encounters, compared to 2022 Q3. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

Northern Light Inland Hospital (200041) experienced a 20% increase in 2022 Q4, which equates to an increase of 51 encounters, compared to 2022 Q3. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

Decreases in Admissions

None.

ED Volume Quality Check: MHDO compares each hospital's 2022 Q4 ED percentage against their prior year's overall ED percentage (2021). Differences of 10 percentage points or more are flagged. Notes for flagged facilities are below.

Houlton Regional Hospital (200026) has an ED volume for 2022 Q4 with 30.1 percentage points Lower than 2021 overall. The hospital confirmed the accuracy noting that Q4 had an increase in ED patients with Medicare, Medicare Advantage and MaineCare as payers.

Mount Desert Island Hospital (200038) has an ED volume for 2022 Q4 with 17.4 percentage points Higher than 2021 overall. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating the reason the volume increased in Q4 was that roughly 25 encounters were admitted during Q3 and not discharged until Q4.

Northern Light Inland Hospital (200041) has an ED volume for 2022 Q4 with 32.9 percentage points Lower than 2021 overall. The hospital validated the accuracy of their reporting and stated there is no specific reason as to why there were less ED admissions.

Redington-Fairview General Hospital (200012) has an ED volume for 2022 Q4 with 45.8 percentage points Higher than 2021 overall. MHDO is in communication with the hospital to confirm and understand the shift in volume.

St. Mary's Regional Medical Center (200034) has an ED volume for 2022 Q4 with 21 percentage points Higher than 2021 overall. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.
10/01/2022 12/31/2022
58 36 2022 Q3 Inpatient Release 36

This release contains July -September (Q3) 2022 Hospital Inpatient Encounter data for Maine hospitals per the data submission requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets; and the data release requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 120, Release of Data to the Public. As defined in Rule Chapter 241, MHDO’s Hospital Inpatient Data pertains to the information generated at the time of discharge which is associated with patients who are provided with room, board, and continuous nursing service based on a physician’s written order in an area of the hospital where patients generally stay more than twenty-four hours. Hospital Outpatient Data on the other hand pertains to the data generated for any patient visit that is not considered an inpatient admission, at any department of the hospital, regardless of its physical location. MHDO’s Hospital Outpatient Data also includes services provided by specialty groups or primary care practices when the hospital owns the data.
07/01/2022 09/30/2022
59 36 Inpatient Release 36: 2022 Q3 Hospital Specific Notes

Total Volume Quality Check: MHDO compared the hospitals encounter volume for Q3 2022 against the previous quarter submitted, Q2 2022, and flagged changes equal to or greater than 20%.

Increases in Admissions

Northern Light C.A. Dean Hospital (200023) experienced a 100% increase in 2022 Q3, which equates to an increase of 19 encounters, compared to 2022 Q2. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating the total number of patients is correct and has increased from previous submission.

Riverview Psychiatric Center (200056) experienced a 78% increase in 2022 Q3, which equates to an increase of 18 encounters, compared to 2022 Q2. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating they have verified there are no issues with the total number of records. COVID still plays a big part in the fluctuations of our numbers each month.

Rumford Hospital (200016) experienced a 21% increase in 2022 Q3, which equates to an increase of 31 encounters compared to 2022 Q2. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

Decreases in Admissions

Cary Medical Center (200031) experienced a 27% decrease in 2022 Q3, which equates to a decrease of 95 encounters, compared to 2022 Q2. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating the data submitted is an accurate reporting of visits.

Millinocket Regional Hospital (200003) experienced a 29% decrease in 2022 Q3, which equates to a decrease of 42 encounters, compared to 2022 Q2. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating due to having more observations in the 3rd quarter and being able to transfer from observation and not inpatient. Note that this Q3 volume is in line with volumes prior to 2021 Q4 when they were not able to transfer patients to a tertiary facility due to COVID.

Missing Historical Data

It recently came to the MHDO’s attention that Riverview Psychiatric Center (200056) had a process issue which resulted in a small number of records being excluded from previous submissions.

-The Q4 2021 file was missing 4 records from the previously submitted total of 23 records.
-The Q2 2022 file was missing 7 records from the previously submitted total of 30 records.

The MHDO will send out a communication to all data users when this missing data is available to data users.
07/01/2022 09/30/2022
56 35 2022 Q2 Inpatient Release 35

This release contains April – June (Q2) 2022 Hospital Inpatient Encounter data for Maine hospitals per the data submission requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets; and the data release requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 120, Release of Data to the Public. As defined in Rule Chapter 241, MHDO’s Hospital Inpatient Data pertains to the information generated at the time of discharge which is associated with patients who are provided with room, board, and continuous nursing service based on a physician’s written order in an area of the hospital where patients generally stay more than twenty-four hours. Hospital Outpatient Data on the other hand pertains to the data generated for any patient visit that is not considered an inpatient admission, at any department of the hospital, regardless of its physical location. MHDO’s Hospital Outpatient Data also includes services provided by specialty groups or primary care practices when the hospital owns the data.
04/01/2022 06/30/2022
57 35 Inpatient Release 35: 2022 Q2 Hospital Specific Notes

Total Volume Quality Check: MHDO compared the hospitals encounter volume for each quarter against the previous quarter submitted and flagged changes equal to or greater than 20%.

Increases in Admissions

Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center (DDPC) (200057) experienced a 106% increase in admissions in 2022 Q2, which equates to an increase of 17 admissions, compared to 2022 Q1. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating they have verified there are not issues with the total records. DDPC normally has fluctuations in services from month to month.

Maine Behavioral Health (200067) experienced a 21% increase in admissions in 2022 Q2, which equates to an increase of 62 admissions, compared to 2022 Q1. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating CY22 Q1 and CY22 Q2 submissions are correct and stating no organizational reasons for change.

St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center (200034) experienced a 20% increase in admissions in 2022 Q2, which equates to an increase of 221 admissions compared to 2022 Q1.

Decreases in Admissions

Northern Light C.A Dean Hospital (200023) experienced a 34% decrease in admissions in 2022 Q2, which equates to a decrease of 10 admissions, compared to 2022 Q1. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating that current volume of 19 for Q2 2022 is correct, and 10 less admits over prior quarter is correct.

ED Volume Quality Check: MHDO compares each hospital's 2022 Q2 ED percentage against their prior year's overall ED percentage (2021). Differences of 10 percentage points or more are flagged. Notes for flagged facilities are below.

There are no facilities with more than 10 percentage points change in ED Volume% when compared to the previous calendar year.
04/01/2022 06/30/2022
53 34 2022 Q1 Inpatient Release 34

This release contains January – March (Q1) 2022 Hospital Inpatient Encounter data for Maine hospitals per the requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets.
01/01/2022 03/31/2022
54 34 Inpatient Release 34: 2022 Q1 Hospital Specific Notes

Total Volume Quality Check: MHDO compared the hospitals encounter volume for each quarter against the previous quarter submitted and flagged changes equal to or greater than 20%.

Increases in Admissions

Riverview Psychiatric Center (200056) experienced a 26% increase in admissions in 2022 Q1, which equates to an increase of 5 admissions, compared to 2021 Q4. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating fluctuations normal for this state psych hospital.

Decreases in Admissions

Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center (200057) experienced a 33% decrease in admissions in 2022 Q1, which equates to a decrease of 8 admissions, compared to 2021 Q4. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating they have verified there are not issues with the total records. DDPC normally has fluctuations in services from month to month.

Northern Light C.A Dean Hospital (200023) experienced a 33% decrease in admissions in 2022 Q1, which equates to a decrease of 14 admissions, compared to 2021 Q4. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating that volume decrease for Q1 2022 vs Q4 2021 is correct, as less patients were seen during this quarter.

ED Volume Quality Check: MHDO compares each hospital's 2022 Q1 ED percentage against their prior year's overall ED percentage (2021). Differences of 10 percentage points or more are flagged. Notes for flagged facilities are below.

Northern Light Inland Hospital (200041): Consistent with what we reported in our Q4 2021 inpatient release notes; MHDO flagged 14 records as inpatient ED visits based on our methodology of having a revenue code of 0450, 0452, 0456, or 0459. The hospital, however, identified an additional 114 records as inpatient ED visits using their methodology. The additional 114 ED records can be identified by using field IP2006 Priority (Type) of Admission or Visit with a value of “1”. The UB-04 identifies the value of 1 to be “Emergency - As a result of severe, life threatening or potentially disabling conditions, the patient requires immediate medical intervention”.

As previously reported Northern Light Inland Hospital plans to resolve this issue in the 2022 Q2 data; and MHDO’s methodology to identify inpatient ED visits will function as it always has.

For more information on the MHDO’s methodology for including an ED flag go here: https://mhdo.maine.gov/faqs_data.html#ed%20visits

Rumford Hospital (200016): ED visits increased in 2022 Q1 by 11.3 percentage points. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

01/01/2022 03/31/2022
55 34 Dartmouth Institute Hospital Service Areas (HSA)

MHDO began assigning the Dartmouth Institute Hospital Service Areas (HSA) to both the hospital inpatient and outpatient data in the 2020 data. This was briefly done in parallel with the Maine Medical Center-created Hospital Service Areas (HAS). The MMC HSA was discontinued starting with the 2021 inpatient and outpatient data. Since then, the crosswalk used to assign the Dartmouth Institute HSA has been updated annually. Unfortunately, due to funding constraints, the Dartmouth Institute has not been able to create and publish the 2020 version as expected earlier this year. The MHDO will continue to monitor the availability of an update and in the meantime will continue to assign the Dartmouth Institute HSA based on the latest version available (2019).
N/A N/A
50 33 2021 Q4 Inpatient Release 33
This release contains October– December (Q4) 2021 Hospital Inpatient Encounter data for Maine hospitals per the requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets.
10/01/2021 12/31/2021
51 33 Inpatient Release 33: 2021 Q4 Hospital Specific Notes

Total Volume Quality Check: MHDO compared the hospitals encounter volume for each quarter against the previous quarter submitted and flagged changes equal to or greater than 20%.

Increases in Admissions

Down East Community Hospital (200027) experienced a 29% admission increase in 2021 Q4, which equates to an increase of 48 admissions, compared to 2021 Q3. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

Millinocket Regional Hospital (200003) experienced a 41% admission increase in 2021 Q4, which equates to an increase of 41 admissions, compared to 2021 Q3. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating numbers are up due to inability to transfer patients to a tertiary facility due to COVID.

Decreases in Admissions

Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center (200057) experienced a 29% admission decrease in 2021 Q4, which equates to a decrease of 10 admissions, compared to 2021 Q3. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating their facility has normal fluctuations in services from month to month.

Riverview Psychiatric Center (200056) experienced a 32% admission decrease in 2021 Q4, which equates to a decrease of 9 admissions, compared to 2021 Q3. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating their facility has normal fluctuations in services from month to month.

ED Volume Quality Check: MHDO compares each hospital's 2021 Q4 ED percentage against their prior year's overall ED percentage (2020). Differences of 10 percentage points or more are flagged. Notes for flagged facilities are below.

Bridgton Hospital (200007): ED visits increased in 2021 Q4 by 24.7 percentage points.

Mount Desert Island Hospital (200038): ED visits increased in 2021 Q4 by 11.9 percentage points. The hospital confirmed the increased and stated 2020 was a COVID year, and a lot of things in the area were closed, tourism was down. 2021 people came back in force, vaccination was now around, and MDI saw an influx of tourism. Per Acadian Nation Park, they broke a lot of visitor records in 2021. We are not surprised by these numbers.

Northern Light Inland Hospital (200041): MHDO flagged 11 records as inpatient ED visits based on our methodology of having a revenue code of 0450, 0452, 0456, or 0459. This is a significant reduction in ED visits where we apply a flag to the ED records. The hospital, however, identified an additional 118 records as ED using their methodology. Data users can identify the 129 ED records using field IP2006 Priority (Type) of Admission or Visit with a value of “1”. The UB-04 identifies the value of 1 to be “Emergency - As a result of severe, life threatening or potentially disabling conditions, the patient requires immediate medical intervention”.
The hospital has since put the step in place so facility charges for ED visits will be captured and submitted and MHDO’s methodology to identify these records as ED will function as it always has.
For more information on the MHDO’s methodology for including an ED flag go here: https://mhdo.maine.gov/faqs_data.html#ed%20visits

Northern Light Maine Coast Hospital (200050): ED visits increased in 2021 Q4 by 12 percentage points. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating the increase was related to Covid-19 and Patients leaving the ER prior to seeing the Provider.

Northern Light Mercy Hospital (200008): ED visits increased in 2021 Q4 by 15.3 percentage points. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating the increase was related to Covid-19 and Patients leaving the ER prior to seeing the Provider.

Northern Light Sebasticook Valley Hospital (200028): ED visits increased in 2021 Q4 by 11.1 percentage points. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating the increase was related to Covid-19 and Acute Upper Respiratory infections.

St. Joseph Hospital (200001): ED visits increased in 2021 Q4 by 11 percentage points. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating St. Joseph’s volume (ED included) was down sharply in 2020, so we are still seeing “increases” reflective of a return to normal.

10/01/2021 12/31/2021
48 32 2021 Q3 Inpatient Release 32

This release contains July– September (Q3) 2021 Hospital Inpatient Encounter data for Maine hospitals per the requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets.
07/01/2021 09/30/2021
49 32 Inpatient Release 32: 2021 Q3 Hospital Specific Notes

Total Volume Quality Check: MHDO compared the hospitals encounter volume for each quarter against the previous quarter submitted and flagged changes equal to or greater than 20%.

Increases in Admissions

Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center (200057) experienced a 21% admission increase in 2021 Q3, which equates to an increase of 7 admissions, compared to 2021 Q2. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating their facility has normal fluctuations in services from month to month.

Northern Light C.A. Dean Hospital (200023) experienced a 171% admission increase in 2021 Q3, which equates to an increase of 24 admissions, compared to 2021 Q2. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating more patients were seen this quarter.

Penobscot Valley Hospital (200062) experienced a 30% admission increase in 2021 Q3, which equates to an increase of 19 admissions, compared to 2021 Q2 volume. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

Riverview Psychiatric Center (200056) experienced a 68% admission increase in 2021 Q3, which equates to an increase of 15 admissions, compared to 2021 Q2. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating their facility has normal fluctuations in services from month to month.

Decreases in Admissions

Calais Regional Hospital (200055) experienced a 42% decrease in 2021 Q3, which equates to a decrease of 37 admissions, compared to 2021 Q2. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating staffing issues, i.e. only 5 patients per staff member; as a result, patients were transferred to. other facilities from the ED.

Maine Behavioral Health (200067) experienced a 21% decrease in 2021 Q3, which equates to a decrease of 88 admissions, compared to 2021 Q2. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating due to an uptick in COVID cases, the MaineHealth organization lowered the number of allowed non-emergent services to reduce exposure risks for patients and staff.

ED Volume Quality Check: MHDO compares each hospital's 2021 Q3 ED % against their prior year's overall ED %. Differences of 10 percentage points or more are flagged. Notes for flagged facilities are below.

Bridgton Hospital (200007): ED visits increased in 2021 Q3 with 10.7 percentage points higher than 2020 overall.

Calais Regional Hospital (200055): ED visits increased in 2021 Q3 with 26 percentage points higher than 2020 overall. The hospital confirmed the accuracy stating, we kept more patients here because the bigger hospitals weren’t taking transfers due to Covid.

Down East Community Hospital (200027): ED visits 2021 Q3 with 10.6 percentage points higher than 2020 overall. Hospital confirmed accuracy stating they had an increase in volume for those three months thus resulting in the percentage increase. The explanation is a bit harder to determine. Summer months are busier for us for both the tourist season and the seasonal workers that are in the blueberry industry. Perhaps folks were seeking outdoor vacations and adventures and were in our area?

Northern Maine Medical Center (200052): ED visits 2021 Q3 with 10.7 percentage points lower than 2020 overall. Hospital confirmed the accuracy of their data.

07/01/2021 09/30/2021
46 31 2021 Q2 Inpatient Release 31

This release contains April – June (Q2) 2021 Hospital Inpatient Encounter data for Maine hospitals per the requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets.
4/01/21 6/30/21
47 31 Inpatient Release 31: 2021 Q2 Hospital Specific Notes

Total Volume Quality Check: MHDO compared the hospitals encounter volume for each quarter against the previous quarter submitted and flagged changes equal to or greater than 20%.

Increases in Volume

Calais Regional Hospital (200055) experienced a 100% increase in 2021 Q2 volume compared to 2021 Q1 volume. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating they had more inpatient visits this quarter.

Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center (200057) experienced a 62% increase in 2021 Q2 volume compared to 2021 Q1 volume. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting and noted that they normally experience fluctuations in volume month to month.

Maine Behavioral Health (200067) experienced a 24% increase in 2021 Q2 volume compared to 2021 Q1 volume. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

Northern Light Blue Hill Hospital (200051) experienced a 35% increase in 2021 Q2 volume compared to 2021 Q1 volume. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting and stated that the increase in patients was due to COVID.

Northern Light Inland Hospital (200041) experienced a 29% increase in 2021 Q2 volume compared to 2021 Q1 volume. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting and stated that the increase in patients was due to COVID related illness.

Northern Maine Medical Center (200052) experienced a 28% increase in 2021 Q2 volume compared to 2021 Q1 volume. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

Redington- Fairview General Hospital (200012) experienced a 30% increase in 2021 Q2 volume compared to 2021 Q1 volume. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting and stated that due to COVID our volume was lower in previous months, so the increase is expected as things get better.

Decreases in Volume

Northern Light C.A. Dean Hospital (200023) experienced a 30% decrease in 2021 Q2 volume compared to 2021 Q1 volume. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

Riverview Psychiatric Center (200056) experienced a 27% decrease in 2021 Q2 volume compared to 2021 Q1 volume. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting, and noted that they normally experience fluctuations in volume month to month.

ED Volume Quality Check: MHDO compares each hospital's 2021 Q2 ED % against their prior year's overall ED %. Differences of 10 percentage points or more are flagged. Notes for flagged facilities are below.

Mount Desert Island Hospital (200038): ED visits increased in 2021 Q2 with 12.3 percentage points higher than 2020 overall.

Northern Light Sebasticook Valley Hospital (200028): ED visits increased in 2021 Q2 with 12.5 percentage points higher than 2020 overall.

Northern Maine Medical Center (200052): ED visits decreased in 2021 Q2 with 20.3 percentage points lower than 2020 overall.

Self-Pay Volume Quality Check: MHDO compared the hospitals self-pay encounter volume for each quarter against the previous quarters submitted and flagged changes that are larger than historical volume.

Redington-Fairview General Hospital (200012) had 15 Self-Pay encounters which represents 4.1% of encounters. Other quarters of 2020 and 2021 are with Self Pay volume of 10 or less and average percentage of 1.9% -3.4%.

4/01/21 6/30/21
43 30 2021 Q1 Inpatient Release 30

This release contains January – March (Q1) 2021 Hospital Inpatient Encounter data for all Maine hospitals per the requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets.
01/01/2021 03/31/2021
44 30 Inpatient Release 30: 2021 Q1 Hospital Specific Notes

Total Volume Quality Check: MHDO compared the hospitals encounter volume for each quarter against the previous quarter submitted and flagged changes equal to or greater than 20%.

Increases in Volume: None

Decreases in Volume:

Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center (200057) experienced a 28% decrease in 2021 Q1 volume compared to 2020 Q4 volume. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting and stated that they experience fluctuations in volume month to month.”

Riverview Psychiatric Center (200056) experienced a 30% decrease in 2021 Q1 volume compared to 2020 Q4 volume. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting and stated that the decrease is attributed to COVID, i.e. quarantining of units and low on staff.”

ED Volume Quality Check: MHDO compares each hospital's 2021 Q1 ED % against their prior year's overall ED %. Differences of 10 percentage points or more are flagged. Notes for flagged facilities are below.

Northern Light Inland Hospital (200041): ED visits increased in 2021 Q1 with 12.1 percentage points higher than 2020 overall.

Rumford Hospital (200016): ED visits decreased in 2021 Q1 with 10.9 percentage points lower than 2020 overall
01/01/21 03/31/21
45 30 Facility Information Update

The following hospital submitter has an updated name (ifFacilityName) in the Support Facilities table:

Mayo Regional Hospital (200066): changed from “Mayo Regional Hospital” to ”Northern Light Mayo Hospital”
Spring Harbor Hospital (200067): changed from “Spring Harbor Hospital” to ”Maine Behavioral Health”
N/A N/A
39 29 2020 Q4 Inpatient Release 29

This release contains October – December (Q4) 2020 Hospital Inpatient Encounter data for all Maine hospitals required to submit according to MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets.
10/01/2020 12/31/2020
40 29 Inpatient Release 29: 2020 Q4 Hospital Specific Notes

Total Volume Quality Check: MHDO compared the hospitals encounter volume for each quarter against the previous quarter submitted and flagged changes equal to or greater than 20%.

Increases in Volume

Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center (200057) with an 81% increase in 2020 Q4 from 2020 Q3 has confirmed the accuracy with the following explanation: “Dorothea Dix normally has fluctuations in services month to month.”

Northern Light Blue Hill Hospital (200051) with a 20% increase in 2020 Q4 from 2020 Q3 has confirmed the accuracy with the following explanation: “The volume increase is due to Covid 19 related visits. "

Riverview Psychiatric Center (200056) with a 23% increase in 2020 Q4 from 2020 Q3 has confirmed the accuracy with the following explanation: “Due to COVID-19 protocols, Riverview has had abnormal fluctuations in services.”

Decreases in Volume

Calais Regional Hospital (200055) with a 34% decrease in 2020 Q4 from 2020 Q3 has confirmed the accuracy with the following explanation: “We only have 10 beds and the patients have been here for a while so not many admissions.”

Penobscot Valley Hospital (200062) with a 20% decrease in 2020 Q4 from 2020 Q3 has confirmed the accuracy with the following explanation: “Fluctuation in patients due to Covid-19-when there is a spike in Covid the trend is that there are less patients coming to the facility or are being transferred from ED”

ED Volume Quality Check: MHDO compares each hospital's 2020 Q3 ED % against their prior year's overall ED %. Differences of 10 percentage points or more are flagged. Notes for flagged facilities are below.

Bridgton Hospital (200007): ED visits decreased in 2020 Q4. The facility confirmed the accuracy with the following explanation: “We did see a significant decrease in volume for all of our facilities due to COVID.”
10/01/2020 12/31/2020
41 29 Updates to the derived Age field for Mayo Regional Hospital (200066)

A total of 13 encounter records previously released with release version 27 that have the Age (IPMVA21_AGE) value as null, should have had the value 0, as these records represent newborn hospitalizations. The value was corrected to age 0 in this release. The affected encounter records are all from Mayo Regional Hospital (200066) and can be identified based on the following unique record identifier (IPMB01_IDN) values: 49836534, 49836541, 49836547, 49836556, 49836981, 49837189, 49837270, 49837445, 49837544, 49837617, 49838069, 49838129, 49838166.
01/01/2019 06/30/2020
42 29 Facility Information Update

Upon a review of the Hospital System column (ifHospitalSystem) in the Support Facilities table, MHDO uncovered some missing information. This only impacts the support table used to identify hospitals and the systems they are affiliated with, not the data themselves. The following hospital submitters have corrected hospital system values as follows:

Penobscot Valley Hospital (200062): change from “Maine Health” to blank
MaineGeneral Medical Center Augusta (200015): change from blank to “MaineGeneral Health”
MaineGeneral Medical Center Waterville (200039): change from blank to “MaineGeneral Health”
New England Rehabilitation Hospital (200010): change from blank to “MaineHealth”
Franklin Memorial Hospital (200037): change from blank to “MaineHealth”
Mid Coast Hospital (200044): change from blank to “MaineHealth”
Mayo Regional Hospital (200066): change from blank to “Northern Light Health”
St. Joseph Hospital (200001): change from blank to “St. Joseph Healthcare”
St. Mary's Regional Medical Center (200034): change from blank to “St. Mary's Health System”

As a result of the changes listed above, the following submitters, affiliated with one of the facilities mentioned, also needed to have their hospital system value updated:

MaineGeneral Physician Offices (200070): change from blank to “MaineGeneral Health”
LSS - Franklin-Physicians Offices (200092): change from blank to “MaineHealth”
ECW - Franklin Physician Offices (200096): change from blank to “MaineHealth”
n/a n/a
37 27 Inpatient Release 27: 2019 Q1 – 2020 Q2 Mayo Regional Hospital (200066) Resubmissions

This release includes Hospital Inpatient Encounter resubmissions from Mayo Regional Hospital (200066) which cover January 2019 – June 2020 (2019 Q1 – 2020 Q2) encounters.
01/01/2019 06/30/2020
38 27 Inpatient Release 27: 2019 Q1 – 2020 Q2 Mayo Regional Hospital (200066) Resubmissions: Hospital Specific Notes

As communicated in past releases, due to a change in the Mayo Regional Hospital’s EHS system, starting with 2019 Q1 data through Q2 2020 the hospital incorrectly submitted ED services in the inpatient data that should have been included in the outpatient data; as a result, the volume of ED visits has been comparatively high in the inpatient data. This situation was addressed by the facility through a resubmission of inpatient and outpatient records for January 2019 through June 2020. MHDO has replaced the affected encounter records with the resubmitted records and has confirmed that the volume of ED records has returned to comparable levels for the affected period through the most current release period (2020 Q3). These data will be available as a separate patch file or the MHDO can release full replacement files if needed. Users should contact the MHDO to obtain these data.
01/01/2019 06/30/2020
35 26 2020 Q3 Inpatient Release 26

This release contains July – September (Q3) 2020 Hospital Inpatient Encounter data for all Maine hospitals required to submit according to MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets.
07/01/2020 09/30/2020
36 26 Inpatient Release 26: 2020 Q3 Hospital Specific Notes

Total Volume Quality Check: MHDO compared the hospitals encounter volume for each quarter against the previous quarter submitted and flagged changes equal to or greater than 20%. The following facilities have more than 20% increase in 2020 Q3 compared to 2020 Q2: Maine Medical Center (200009), Mount Desert Island Hospital (200038), Northern Light AR Gould Hospital (200018), Northern Light C.A. Dean Hospital (200023), Northern Light Sebasticook Valley Hospital (200028), Pen Bay Medical Center (200063), Penobscot Valley Hospital (200062), Southern Maine Health Care (200019), St. Joseph Hospital (200001), and York Hospital (200020).
These facilities have confirmed the accuracy of the volumes with explanations indicating services began to increase since the initial impacts of COVID-19. Q2 decreases were noted in previous release, this reduction was in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center (200057) with a 33% decrease from 2020 Q2 has confirmed the accuracy with the following explanation: “We have verified that there are not issues with the total records. Dorothea Dix normally has fluctuations in services from month to month.”

ED Volume Quality Check: MHDO compares each hospital's 2020 Q3 ED % against their prior year's overall ED %. Differences of 10 percentage points or more are flagged. Notes for flagged facilities are below.

Bridgton Hospital (200007): ED visits decreased in 2020 Q3. To date the hospital has not provided any insight.

Northern Light Inland Hospital (200041): ED visits decreased in 2020 Q3. The hospital has confirmed the accuracy with the following explanation: “These numbers would be correct. We had a decrease in visits due to COVID.”

As communicated in past releases, due to a change in the Mayo Regional Hospital’s EHS system, starting with 2019 Q1 data through Q2 2020 the hospital incorrectly submitted ED services in the inpatient data that should have been included in the outpatient data; as a result, the volume of ED visits has been comparatively high in the inpatient data. This situation was addressed in the Q3 2020 data. MHDO has confirmed that the volume of ED records has returned to comparable levels for the current release. See the Release 27 notes below regarding the resubmitted 2019 Q1 – 2020 Q2 data.
07/01/2020 09/30/2020
30 25 2020 Q1-Q2 Inpatient Release 25

This release contains January – June (Q1-Q2) 2020 Hospital Inpatient Encounter data for all Maine hospitals required to submit according to MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets
1/1/2020 6/30/2020
31 25 Hospital Specific Notes (2020 Q1-Q2 Inpatient Release 25):

Total Volume Quality Check: We compared the encounter volume for each quarter against the previous quarter and flagged changes equal to or greater than 20%. The following facilities have a 20% to 30% volume decrease in 2020 Q2 compared to 2020 Q1: Calais Regional Hospital (200055), Central Maine Medical Center (200024), LincolnHealth (201302), Millinocket Regional Hospital (200003), Mount Desert Island Hospital (200038), Northern Light Acadia Hospital (200004), Northern Light AR Gould Hospital (200018), Northern Light Blue Hill Hospital (200051), Pen Bay Medical Center (200063), Penobscot Valley Hospital (200062), Rumford Hospital (200016), and York Hospital (200020). Northern Light Inland Hospital (200041) has a 25% decrease in 2020 Q1 from 2019 Q4. All of these facilities have confirmed the accuracy of the volume changes, and most have indicated that the reduction in services is in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Others verified the submitted volume as correct but did not provide a specific reason for the change.

Encounter volume decreases larger than 30% in 2020 Q2 compared to 2020 Q1 have been noted below and hospital explanations provided.

Riverview Psychiatric Center (200056) with a 62% volume decrease - “Due to COVID 19, the hospital has restricted the number of admissions and discharges. This will be an ongoing process until we are able to fully function.”, Northern Light C.A. Dean Hospital (200023) with a 59% volume decrease - “Volume reported is accurate”, and St. Joseph Hospital (200001) with a 39% decrease - “Drop in volume has been validated and is a direct result of COVID.”

Total ED Volume Quality Check: We compared 2020 Q1 and Q2 ED% against the overall 2019 Q1-Q4 ED% to see if the absolute percentage point difference is 10 or higher. Notes for flagged facilities are below.

Bridgton Hospital (200007): ED visits decreased in 2020 Q2. To date the hospital has not provided any insight.

Calais Regional Hospital (200055): ED visits increased in 2020 Q2 and may be directly related to the overall encounter volume decrease noted above.

St. Joseph Hospital (200001): ED visits increased in 2020 Q2. The hospital verified these numbers and stated the change was likely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mayo Regional Hospital (200066): As previously communicated, due to a change in the Mayo Regional Hospital’s EHS system, the facility submitted ED services in the inpatient data starting with 2019 Q1 data that historically had been included in the outpatient data; as a result the volume of ED visits has been comparatively high. This situation continues to be applicable in the 2020 Q1-Q2 release. The facility has indicated that the inpatient encounters affected by this situation are those with Primary Payer Category values of 01 MEDICARE, 02 MEDICAID (MaineCare), 04 TRICARE/USVA, 09 WORKERS COMPENSATION and 12 MEDICARE ADVANTAGE AND Revenue code values of 0450.

Mayo Regional Hospital has committed to resolving this issue beginning with their Q3 2020 submissions to MHDO. They have also committed to resubmitting CY 2019 and 2020 Q1-Q2 records with the appropriate ED services in the outpatient file to MHDO by January 15, 2021. The updated data will be available for data users in March 2021. The MHDO will work with current data users to determine who would like to receive the updated release files.

Lastly, MHDO investigated ways to remove the ED services portions for the 2020 Q1-Q2 data; however, we have determined that it is not possible to do solely based on the information submitted on the encounter. We apologize for any confusion.
1/1/2020 6/30/2020
32 25 Billing Provider NPI: The base release layout now includes IP8012 Billing Provider NPI. 1/1/2020 n/a
33 25 Enhanced Deidentified Person ID

The enhanced deidentified MHDO-assigned replacement Person ID is meant to be unique for a given person regardless of hospital. This field appears in the base release layout as IPMB10_PersonID and contains integer values.
1/1/2020 n/a
34 25 Enhanced Provider ID

The enhanced MHDO-assigned replacement Provider ID is a single integer identifier that is assigned to a provider (regardless of whether that provider is acting as an operating provider, an attending provider, or a billing provider) on a given encounter. Each MHDO assigned provider ID is associated with no more than one NPI.

For data releases that include Provider Identifiable data as outlined in Chapter 120, the following revised MHDO-assigned replacement fields are included: IPMB11_Attending_ProviderID, IPMB12_Operating_ProviderID, IPMB13_Billing_ProviderID.

To support the enhanced MHDO-assigned replacement Provider ID, authorized data users will receive an updated support table vwSupport_Provider_Details beginning with this release. The table will provide one row for each Provider ID with provider details as authorized under Chapter 120 for release, such as NPI and, for data users authorized to receive provider identifiable information, provider name. A text file named vwSupport_Provider_Details_Layout with the layout of this file will also be included in this release.
1/1/2020 n/a
27 24 Q4 2019 Inpatient Release 24

This release contains October – December (Q4) 2019 Hospital Inpatient Encounter data for all Maine hospitals required to submit according to MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets
10/1/2019 12/31/2019
28 24 Facility Information Update

Previously, in the Support Facilities table, Pen Bay Medical Center (200063) was missing information in the Hospital System column. It has been updated to indicate it belongs to the “Maine Health” hospital system.
n/a n/a
29 24 Hospital Specific Notes (Q4 2019 Inpatient Release 24):

Total Volume Quality Check: We compared volume for Q4 against the previous quarter Q3 and flagged potential issues if the changes are equal to or greater than 20%. Notes for three flagged facilities are below.

Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center (200057): The facility had an increase in the overall encounter volume from Q3 to Q4. The facility indicated that the increase is due to normal fluctuation in services month to month.

Mount Desert Island Hospital (200038): The facility had a decrease in the overall encounter volume from Q3 to Q4. The facility indicated that, as a Critical Access Hospital with 25 beds, their inpatient volume is volatile and is very dependent on providers available to care for patients.

Northern Light Blue Hill Hospital (200051): The facility had a decrease in the overall encounter volume from Q3 to Q4. The facility confirmed the accuracy of the volume change.

Total ED Volume Quality Check: We compared 2019 Q4 ED% against the overall 2018 Q1-Q4 ED% and flagged potential issues if the absolute percentage point difference is 10 or higher. Notes for two flagged facilities are below.

Bridgton Hospital (200007): Quality checks indicate ED visits decreased. To date the hospital has not provided any insight.

Mayo Regional Hospital (200066): As previously reported, MHDO’s data quality checks indicate ED visits continue to be high. According to the hospital there are ED encounters in the inpatient data that should be in the outpatient data, but unfortunately the new EHS system is not able to process correctly. The hospital is exploring possible solutions to this issue. In the interim, there are outpatient ED encounters that are included in the inpatient data. The outpatient ED records are identified as records with Primary Payer Category values of 01 MEDICARE, 02 MEDICAID (MaineCare), 04 TRICARE/USVA, 09 WORKERS COMPENSATION and 12 MEDICARE ADVANTAGE AND Revenue code values of 0450.
10/1/2019 12/31/2019
23 23 Q3 2019 Inpatient Release 23

This release contains July – September (Q3) 2019 Hospital Inpatient Encounter data for all Maine hospitals required to submit according to MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets
7/1/2019 9/30/2019
24 23 Facilities Status Updates

MHDO completed a review of the Support Facilities table that accompanies the Inpatient and Outpatient releases. Data for a subset of the facilities listed are no longer submitted under their original MHDO ID’s (SubmitterEIN in the encounter data and ifFacilityID in the Support Facilities table). To indicate this, the following changes have been made in the Support Facilities file:

(1) ‘Deactivated’ and ‘Closed’ statuses are added to the ifStatus field. ‘Deactivated’ indicates that the MHDO ID (SubmitterEIN in the encounter data or ifFacility ID) is no longer being utilized. ‘Closed’ indicates that the facility is no longer in operation.
(2) A Notes field is added to provide information about the facility history and any relevant impact to the data submission, as well as dates and details pertaining to the submitter’s status.

Additionally, the previous version of the Support Facilities table indicated that MHDO ID 200009 (Maine Medical Center) is the affiliated Hospital ID for submitters: 200103, 200104, 200147, 200148, 200149. The correct MHDO ID, 200032 (Stephens Memorial Hospital), is now displayed in the ifAffiliatedHospitalID field.
n/a n/a
25 23 Hospital Specific Notes (Q3 2019 Inpatient Release 23):

Mount Desert Island Hospital (200038): The facility has a 22% increase in the overall encounter volume from Q2 to Q3. The facility indicated that the increase is due to a local nursing home that closed. Two new doctors joined the hospital’s staff.

Northern Light C.A. Dean Hospital (200023): The facility has a 29% decrease in the overall encounter volume from Q2 to Q3. The facility confirmed the accuracy of the volume change.

Calais Regional Hospital (200055): Quality checks indicate ED visits increased. The facility confirmed the accuracy of the change.

Mayo Regional Hospital (200066): The impact from Mayo’s transition to a new EHS system continues to give the appearance of a large increase in inpatient ED visits. According to the hospital there are ED encounters in the inpatient data that should be in the outpatient data, but unfortunately the new EHS system is not able to process correctly. The hospital is exploring possible solutions to this issue. In the interim, these outpatient ED encounters are included in the inpatient data. MHDO is working with Mayo Regional Hospital to determine if there is a way to identify these encounters in the inpatient data. If there is a way to do so, MHDO will send a follow up communication to the MHDO data users.

Northern Light Sebasticook Valley Hospital (200028): Quality checks indicate an increase in ED visits . The facility stated this is due to a higher overall census: “the facility is actively working on acute to acute transfers from other area hospitals as well as from the Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center’s Emergency Department.”
7/1/2019 9/30/2019
26 16 In the Q3 2018 Inpatient release, one encounter record (IPMB01_IDN = 49594007) had erroneously blank values in a subset of fields . The fields that were erroneously left blank for this IDN and the correct values they should have are the following: IPMVA30_MRNEncrypted (000072945), IPMVA20_LOS (1), IPMVA21_AGE (80), IPMVA23_RVHITS (16), and IPMVA25_EDFlag (1). 7/1/2018 9/30/2018
21 22 Q2 2019 Inpatient Release 22

This release contains April – June (Q2) 2019 Hospital Inpatient Encounter data for all Maine hospitals required to submit according to MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets
4/1/2019 6/30/2019
22 22 Hospital Specific Notes (Q2 2019):

Penobscot Valley Hospital (200062): The volume for this quarter has decreased since Q1; however, it is the same as Q4 2018’s. As reported 1/29/19 by Penobscot Valley Hospital, “The ripple effects of regional economic conditions including the loss of Lincoln’s major employer, Lincoln Paper and Tissue, have led to high unemployment rates, loss of commercial health insurance coverage, and families moving out of the area. In-patient admissions have decreased 65% and overall patient volume has decreased by nearly 10% over the last four years”.

Mayo Regional Hospital (200066): The percentage of ED visits appears to have increased when compared to the historical volume, however it is because ED charges for patients paying via Medicare have not been split out and moved to the outpatient data record. This record split must be done manually now, since the recent transition to a new EHS system; the facility notified MHDO that there is a delay in this process, which resulted in an apparent increase in the ED visit volume.
4/1/2019 6/30/2019
18 21 Q1 2019 Inpatient Release 21

This release contains January – March (Q1) 2019 Hospital Inpatient Encounter data for all Maine hospitals required to submit according to MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets
1/1/2019 3/31/2019
20 21 Hospital Specific Notes (Q1 2019):

Rumford Hospital (200016): The volume has increased from the previous quarter; however, the 2018 Q4 volume was unusually low. The Q1 2019 volume is in a normal range for this facility.

Mayo Regional Hospital (200066): The percentage of ED visits appears to have increased when compared to the historical volume, however it is because ED charges for patients paying via Medicare have not been split out and moved to the outpatient data record. This record split must be done manually now, since the recent transition to a new EHS system; the facility notified MHDO that there is a delay in this process, which resulted in an apparent increase in the ED visit volume.

Maine Medical Center (200009), MaineGeneral Medical Center Augusta (200015), Southern Maine Health Care (200019): In Q1 2019, these facilities had decreases in the self-pay volume when compared to the historical volume. MHDO has been notified by these facilities that the decrease is attributed to the MaineCare Expansion, effective since January 2019.
1/1/2019 3/31/2019
12 16, 19 Q4 2018 Inpatient Release 19

This release contains October – December (Q4) 2018 Hospital Inpatient Encounter data for all Maine hospitals required to submit according to MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets

Q3 2018 Inpatient Release 16

This release contains July – September (Q3) 2018 Hospital Inpatient Encounter data for all Maine hospitals required to submit according to MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets
7/1/2018 12/31/2018
13 17 2009-2010 Inpatient Mapping Error Resolution

This release resolves an issue with the 2009 and 2010 Hospital Inpatient Encounter release files. Due to a mapping error, the field IPML20_ZIP_5 was NULL in some cases when it should have been populated. This mapping error was fixed and the appropriate IPML20_ZIP_5 values were populated. These updated values were made available to MHDO Data Applicants who had already been approved to receive the applicable data. Enclave users and new data applicants who request data extracts in this date range will have access to the updated values.
1/1/2009 12/31/2010
14 18 Q2 2018 Inpatient - Missing Records for DRG Grouper

This release resolves an issue in the Q2 2018 Hospital Inpatient Encounter release files where 291 records were missing all values in the DRG grouper fields (both MS-DRG and APR-DRG), representing the full 2018 Q2 volume of records from Charles A. Dean Memorial Hospital and from Down East Community Hospital. This issue has been addressed in our data. The affected fields were IPMG20_MSDRG, IPMG21_MSMDC, IPMG22_MSVer, IPMG23_APRDRG, IPMG24_APRMDC, and IPMG25_APRVER. These updated values were made available to MHDO Data Applicants who had already been approved to receive the applicable data. Enclave users and new data applicants who request data extracts in this date range will have access to the updated values.
4/1/2018 6/30/2018
15 16, 19 and later than 19 Facility Name and System Changes

As of October 1, 2018, Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems (EMHS) and the facilities affiliated with it became Northern Light Health. The following changes have been made in the Support Facilities file. Additionally, their Hospital System name has been changed from EMHS to Northern Light Health.
Hospitals:
- (200004) Acadia Hospital » Northern Light Acadia Hospital
- (200051) Blue Hill Memorial Hospital » Northern Light Blue Hill Hospital
- (200023) C.A. Dean Memorial Hospital » Northern Light C.A. Dean Hospital
- (200033) Eastern Maine Medical Center » Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center
- (200041) Inland Hospital » Northern Light Inland Hospital
- (200050) Maine Coast Memorial Hospital » Northern Light Maine Coast Hospital
- (200008) Mercy Hospital » Northern Light Mercy Hospital
- (200028) Sebasticook Valley Health » Northern Light Sebasticook Valley Hospital
- (200018) The Aroostook Medical Center » Northern Light AR Gould Hospital

Clinics:
- (200072) Maine Coast Physician Offices » Northern Light Maine Coast Physician Offices
- (200078) Mercy Outpatient Provider Clinics » Northern Light Mercy Outpatient Provider Clinics
7/1/2018 N/A
16 16, 19 Hospital Specific Notes (Q3 & Q4 2018):

Calais Regional Hospital (200055): Inpatient care capacity decreased from 25 to 10 hospital beds starting with June 2018.

Maine Coast Memorial Hospital (200050): Increase in volume from previous two quarters are normal volume. Q1 and Q2 were lower due to an issue with the vendor software, which was resolved for Q3 data.

Penobscot Valley Hospital (200062): Decrease in volume is due to hospital's new process to place patients in two-day observation rather than admitting with the inpatient status. Additionally, loss of a major employer in the hospital area has had an economic impact on this facility over the past years.

7/1/2018 12/31/2018
17 20 New Payer Category Codes – Patch File for Inpatient data prior to Q3 2018.

This release affects previously released Hospital Inpatient Encounter records for data prior to Q3 2018. It contains encounter rows that have had at least one of the following fields updated: IPMPY20_PAY1, IPMPY21_PAY2, IPMPY22_PAY3. The MHDO periodically reassesses payer names that were assigned Payer Category Codes of ‘99’ or null in previous releases to determine whether newly received data have brought the number of encounters associated with these names above the “10 or more encounters” threshold. Previously unassigned payer names found to be above this threshold are assigned a Payer Category Code and encounters that previously were coded with a null or ‘99’ are then updated with the new code. Enclave users and new data applicants who request data extracts in this date range will have access to the updated values. A patch file with these new Payer Category Codes is available by request for current data requestors who previously received data extracts in this date range.
1/1/2009 6/30/2018
10 14 This release contains April – June (Q2) 2018 Hospital Inpatient Encounter data. It contains inpatient encounter data for all Maine hospitals required to submit according to MHDO Rule Chapter 241.
Data issues to note in this release:
Per our Q3 2017 release note on ED visits, Mayo Hospital continues to have lower counts for ED visits compared to Q1 and Q2 2017 data.
4/1/2018 6/30/2018
11 15 Two duplicate records were noticed in already released inpatient data:
(a) IPMB01_IDN = 49464572 in the 2018 Q1 inpatient release
(b) IPMB01_IDN = 49428583 in the 2017 Q4 inpatient release
The issue arose due to a mismatch between the hospital-supplied patient ZIP code and the hospital-supplied patient city, for out-of-state patients, resulting in two identical records for the same IPMB01_IDN, except for the geocode field; one of the two distinct records has a correctly assigned geocode value, while the other instance can be deleted.
Users should take note and exclude the following records from all applicable files received:
(a) For IPMB01_IDN = 49464572, the record with IPML22_GEOCODE = 44055 should be deleted
(b) For IPMB01_IDN = 49428583, the record with IPML22_GEOCODE = 44045 is the improper one and can be deleted
multiple multiple
9 13 This release contains January – March (Q1) 2018 Hospital Inpatient Encounter data. It contains inpatient encounter data for all Maine hospitals required to submit according to MHDO Rule Chapter 241. Data issues to note in this release:
Per our Q3 2017 release note on ED visits, Mayo Hospital continues to have lower counts for ED visits compared to Q1 and Q2 2017 data.
1/1/2018 3/31/2018
1 5 New Release File: This release contains a new file: OP61_Narrow. This file contains the same detail information as the existing OP61 file. However, it has been restructured. Rather than each row having three sets of fields documenting revenue codes, HCPCS codes, etc., the OP61_Narrow format only has a single set of fields. So, if an encounter has 2 records with all fields populated on the OP61 table with OP6102_SequenceNumbers 1-2, these would appear as 6 records on OP61_Narrow with OP6102_SequenceNumbers 1-6. The MHDO will continue to supply the OP61 information in both formats for reasons of backwards compatibility. 1/1/2017 12/31/2017
2 5 Hospital Specific Notes:
Calais Regional Hospital (200055) – lower counts in February 2017 due to loss of physicians and services at hospital.

Mount Desert Island Hospital (200038) – lower count in February 2017 due to few of the high-volume providers on vacation during that month, having significant impact on their volume.

Pen Bay Medical Center (200063) - lower record count for Pen Bay physician clinic data is due to the change in EMR vendors. The new system includes multiple procedures in one encounter record; whereas previous did not.
1/1/2017 12/31/2017
3 5 Missing Data:
Maine Coast Physician Offices (200072) – Missing Q4 2017 data due to unresolved issues with their data vendor. MHDO is working with submitter in hopes that the missing Q4 2017 data will be submitted and included in the next release of hospital outpatient data.

Mount Desert Island Health Centers (200086) – Missing data due to issues with new vendor and system. MHDO is working with submitter in hopes that the missing Q4 2017 data will be submitted and included in the next release of hospital outpatient data.

Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center (200057) – Dorothea Dix reported to MHDO that they do not have final bills for Q4 2017 and will include any Q4 2017 outpatient encounters in the next reporting cycle.
1/1/2017 12/31/2017
4 5 Closings:
Riverview Psychiatric Center-Medication Management Clinic (200056) –Riverview notified the MHDO that their Medication Management Clinic closed January 2017, so beginning with Q1 2017 there will be no outpatient claims to submit.
1/1/2017 12/31/2017
8 11 This release contains October – December (Q4) 2017 Hospital Inpatient Encounter data. It contains inpatient encounter data for all Maine hospitals required to submit according to MHDO Rule Chapter 241. Data issues to note in this release:

Per our Q3 release note on ED visits, Mayo Hospital continues to have lower counts for ED visits compared to Q1 and Q2 2017 data.
10/1/2017 12/30/2017
7 10 This release contains July – September (Q3) 2017 Hospital Inpatient Encounter data. It contains inpatient encounter data for all Maine hospitals required to submit according to MHDO Rule Chapter 241. Data issues to note in this release:

1) As of August 2017, Calais Hospital no longer delivers babies.

2) Emergency Department (ED) visits – MHDO’s methodology for flagging ED visits remains unchanged – visits that have a revenue code of 0450, 0452, 0456, or 0459 are flagged and considered ED visits. In this release we noticed around a 50% drop in flagged ED visits for two facilities in the 3rd quarter – Calais Hospital and Mayo Hospital. Note: the number of total encounters at these facilities remained consistent with historical counts. Both hospitals are Critical Access Hospitals with CPSI as their data vendor. Based on our research of these issues it appears that our methodology to flag ED visits as described above may not be catching ED visits at critical access hospitals for certain payers. What has come to our attention from these two CAH’s that is impacting our ability to apply our flagging methodology is a billing practice referred to as “split” billing. Feedback from these hospitals is as follows:

Calais Hospital: MHDO’s methodology described above is only flagging non-Medicare patients with ED visits at Calais Hospital. The reason for this is as described by Calais Hospital: All Medicare accounts at our facility “split” off to bill the ED separately, meaning any inpatient with Medicare will not show any ED charges (Rev codes in the 0450’s) on their Inpatient record. Instead there will be a separate record (ED only) created after discharge to bill the ED portion of the stay.

Mayo Hospital: MHDO’s methodology described above is only flagging non-Medicare, MaineCare, VA, Workers Comp and Medicare Replacement plans at Mayo Hospital.

MHDO/HSRI will discuss with CAH’s the best way to identify all ED visits regardless of the payer for future releases.
7/1/2017 9/30/2017
5 6 This release contains January-June (Q1 & Q2) 2017 Hospital Inpatient Encounter data.
It contains inpatient encounter data for all Maine hospitals required to submit according to
Chapter 241 and there are no data quality issues to note.
1/1/2017 6/30/2017

Hospital Outpatient Encounter Release Notes

Note: As part of the release, all users were provided the link to the Hospital Encounter Data section of the FAQ web page and the link to the Hospital Data Dictionary.

Note ID Release Version Note Text Start Data Year End Data Year
60 29 2023 Q4 Outpatient Release 29

This release contains October – December (Q4) 2023 Hospital Outpatient Encounter data for all Maine hospitals per the data submission requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Set and the data release requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 120, Release of Data to the Public. As defined in Rule Chapter 241, MHDO’s Hospital Outpatient Data pertains to the data generated for any patient visit that is not considered an inpatient admission, at any department of the hospital, regardless of its physical location. MHDO’s Hospital Outpatient Data also includes services provided by specialty groups or primary care practices when the hospital owns the data.

Data for all outpatient services of the hospital and all services provided by specialty groups or primary care practices must be filed under the MHDO provider code assigned to that hospital.

Every encounter that is populated with a designated subset of CMS defined Place of Service codes (11,17, 20, 22, 49, 50, 71, 72) must include a Location of Service code, which is a homegrown code internally created by the hospital and used primarily to identify the location of physician practices (primary care, specialty care and clinics). Hospital departments are not required to have a Location of Service code.

Note: Each hospital is required to submit annually (or prior to quarterly releases if there are new locations) an updated Location of Service crosswalk, which includes the hospital created Location of Service code, full location name, address, city, state, zip code, and date (approximate in some cases) the location began providing services. The information submitted in the hospital crosswalks is made available to MHDO data users via a support table (Support_LOS_Code_Improved_Current).

A new flag has been added to this table which indicates the most recent Location of Service code crosswalk. This flag is set to ‘1’ when the submission timestamp is the most recent and set to ‘0’ when it is not.
10/01/2023 12/31/2023
61 29 Outpatient Release 29: 2023 Q4 Hospital Specific Notes

Total Volume Quality Check: MHDO compared the hospitals outpatient encounter volume for Q4 2023 against Q3 2023. If there is a 20% or more difference the file is flagged for review and explanation from the hospital.

None

ED Volume Quality Check: MHDO compared the volume of ED records submitted against that of the previous quarter's submission. If there is a 20% or more difference the file is flagged for review and explanation from the hospital.

None

Self-Pay Volume Check: MHDO compares the percentages of Self-pay encounters per quarter to that of the previous complete calendar year. If there is a 10% or more difference the facility is flagged for review and explanation from the hospital.

None

Encounters Missing Primary Payer Name: MHDO compares the number of records per quarter missing OP3009 Payer Name (Primary) against the total number of records per quarter. Hospitals with percentages of records with missing primary payer names equal to or greater than 1% are identified below with a statement from the hospital explaining the variation.

None
10/01/2023 12/31/2023
62 29 Reminder - Admission/Start of Care Date: The National Uniform Billing Committee (NUBC) standards require this date for UB-04 inpatient claims only (or to indicate the start of care date for home health or hospice services). NUBC standards require the date the outpatient services were provided and can be found in the following fields: OP6110_ServiceDate1, OP6117_ServiceDate2, and OP6124_ServiceDate3. 10/01/2023 12/31/2023
57 28 2023 Q3 Outpatient Release 28

This release contains July - September (Q3) 2023 Hospital Outpatient Encounter data for all Maine hospitals per the data submission requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Set and the data release requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 120, Release of Data to the Public. As defined in Rule Chapter 241, MHDO’s Hospital Outpatient Data pertains to the data generated for any patient visit that is not considered an inpatient admission, at any department of the hospital, regardless of its physical location. MHDO’s Hospital Outpatient Data also includes services provided by specialty groups or primary care practices when the hospital owns the data.

Data for all outpatient services of the hospital and all services provided by specialty groups or primary care practices must be filed in one or more outpatient data streams under the MHDO provider code assigned to that hospital.

Every encounter that is populated with a designated subset of CMS defined Place of Service codes (11,17, 20, 22, 49, 50, 71, 72) must include a Location of Service code, which is a homegrown code internally created by the Hospital and used primarily to identify the location of physician practices (primary care, specialty care and clinics). Hospital departments are not required to have a Location of Service code.

Note: Each hospital is required to submit annually (or prior to quarterly releases if there are new locations) an updated Location of Service crosswalk, which includes the internally created unique Location of Service code, full location name, address, city, state, zip code, and date (approximate in some cases) the location began providing services. The information submitted in the hospital crosswalks is made available to MHDO data users via a support table (Support_LOS_Code_Improved_Current).

A new flag has been added to this table which indicates the most recent Location of Service code crosswalk. This flag is set to ‘1’ when the submission timestamp is the most recent and set to ‘0’ when it is not.
7/01/2023 9/30/2023
58 28 Outpatient Release 28: 2023 Q3 Hospital Specific Notes

Total Volume Quality Check: MHDO compared the hospitals outpatient encounter volume for Q3 2023 against Q2 2023, and flagged changes equal to or greater than 20%.

Increase in Outpatient Encounters equal to or greater than 20%: None

Decrease in Outpatient Encounters (may include hospital outpatient encounters and or encounters at hospital owned specialty groups or primary care practices.):

New England Rehabilitation Hospital (200010) experienced a 29% decrease in 2023 Q3, which equates to a decrease of 52 encounters compared to 2023 Q2. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of the data and indicated that the volume is expected to increase for 2023 Q4.

ED Volume Quality Check: MHDO compared the volume of ED records submitted against that of the previous quarter's submission. If there is a 20% or more difference the file is flagged for review and explanation.

None

Self-Pay Volume Check: MHDO compares the percentages of Self-pay encounters per quarter to that of the previous complete calendar year. If there is a 10% or more difference the facility is flagged for review and explanation.

None

Encounters Missing Primary Payer Name: MHDO compares the number of records per quarter missing OP3009 Payer Name (Primary) against the total number of records per quarter. Hospitals with percentages of records with missing primary payer names equal to or greater than 1% are identified below with a statement from the hospital explaining the variation.

None
7/01/2023 9/30/2023
59 28 Reminder - Admission/Start of Care Date: The National Uniform Billing Committee (NUBC) standards require this date for UB-04 inpatient claims only (or to indicate the start of care date for home health or hospice services). NUBC standards require the date the outpatient services were provided and can be found in the following fields: OP6110_ServiceDate1, OP6117_ServiceDate2, and OP6124_ServiceDate3. 7/01/2023 9/30/2023
54 27 2023 Q2 Outpatient Release 27

This release contains April - June (Q2) 2023 Hospital Outpatient Encounter data for all Maine hospitals per the data submission requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Set and the data release requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 120, Release of Data to the Public. As defined in Rule Chapter 241, MHDO’s Hospital Outpatient Data pertains to the data generated for any patient visit that is not considered an inpatient admission, at any department of the hospital, regardless of its physical location. MHDO’s Hospital Outpatient Data also includes services provided by specialty groups or primary care practices when the hospital owns the data.

Data for all outpatient services of the hospital and all services provided by specialty groups or primary care practices must be filed in one or more outpatient data streams under the MHDO provider code assigned to that hospital.

Every encounter that is populated with a designated subset of CMS defined Place of Service codes (11,17, 20, 22, 49, 50, 71, 72) must include a Location of Service code, which is a homegrown code internally created by the Hospital and used primarily to identify the location of physician practices (primary care, specialty care and clinics). Hospital departments are not required to have a Location of Service code.

Note: Each hospital is required to submit annually (or prior to quarterly releases if there are new locations) an updated Location of Service crosswalk, which includes the internally created unique Location of Service code, full location name, address, city, state, zip code, and date (approximate in some cases) the location began providing services. The information submitted in the hospital crosswalks is made available to MHDO data users via a support table (Support_LOS_Code_Improved_Current).

A new flag has been added to this table which indicates the most recent Location of Service code crosswalk. This flag is set to ‘1’ when the submission timestamp is the most recent and set to ‘0’ when it is not.
04/01/2023 06/30/2023
55 27 Outpatient Release 27: 2023 Q2 Hospital Specific Notes

Total Volume Quality Check: MHDO compared each hospitals outpatient encounter volume for Q2 2023 against Q1 2023 and flagged changes equal to or greater than 20%.

Increases in Outpatient Encounters: None

Decreases in Outpatient Encounters (may include hospital outpatient encounters and or encounters at hospital owned specialty groups or primary care practices.):

None

Encounters Missing Primary Payer Name: MHDO compares the number of records per quarter missing OP3009 Payer Name (Primary) against the total number of records per quarter. Hospitals with percentages of records with missing primary payer names equal to or greater than 1% are identified below with a statement from the hospital explaining the variation.

None
04/01/2023 06/30/2023
56 27 Reminder - Admission/Start of Care Date: The National Uniform Billing Committee (NUBC) standards require this date for UB-04 inpatient claims only (or to indicate the start of care date for home health or hospice services). NUBC standards require the date the outpatient services were provided and can be found in the following fields: OP6110_ServiceDate1, OP6117_ServiceDate2, and OP6124_ServiceDate3. 04/01/2023 06/30/2023
50 26 2023 Q1 Outpatient Release 26

This release contains January - March (Q1) 2023 Hospital Outpatient Encounter data for all Maine hospitals per the data submission requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Set and the data release requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 120, Release of Data to the Public. As defined in Rule Chapter 241, MHDO’s Hospital Outpatient Data pertains to the data generated for any patient visit that is not considered an inpatient admission, at any department of the hospital, regardless of its physical location. MHDO’s Hospital Outpatient Data also includes services provided by specialty groups or primary care practices when the hospital owns the data.

Data for all outpatient services of the hospital and all services provided by specialty groups or primary care practices must be filed in one or more outpatient data streams under the MHDO provider code assigned to that hospital.

Every encounter that is populated with a designated subset of CMS defined Place of Service codes (11,17, 20, 22, 49, 50, 71, 72) must include a Location of Service code, which is a homegrown code internally created by the Hospital and used primarily to identify the location of physician practices (primary care, specialty care and clinics). Hospital departments are not required to have a Location of Service code.

Note: Each hospital is required to submit annually (or prior to quarterly releases if there are new locations) an updated Location of Service crosswalk, which includes the internally created unique Location of Service code, full location name, address, city, state, zip code, and date (approximate in some cases) the location began providing services. The information submitted in the hospital crosswalks is made available to MHDO data users via a support table (Support_LOS_Code_Improved_Current).

A new flag has been added to this table which indicates the most recent Location of Service code crosswalk. This flag is set to ‘1’ when the submission timestamp is the most recent and set to ‘0’ when it is not.
01/01/2023 03/31/2023
51 26 Outpatient Release 26: 2023 Q1 Hospital Specific Notes

Total Volume Quality Check: MHDO compared each hospital's outpatient encounter volume for Q1 2023 against Q4 2022 and flagged changes equal to or greater than 20%.

Increases in Outpatient Encounters: None

Decreases in Outpatient Encounters (may include hospital outpatient encounters and or encounters at hospital owned specialty groups or primary care practices).

None

Encounters Missing Primary Payer Name: MHDO compares the number of records per quarter missing OP3009 Payer Name (Primary) against the total number of records per quarter. Hospitals with percentages of records with missing primary payer names equal to or greater than 1% are identified below with a statement from the hospital explaining the variation.

None
01/01/2023 03/31/2023
52 26 Diagnosis Codes: MHDO compares the number of records per quarter missing OP7104 Principal Diagnosis against the total number of records per quarter. Outpatient encounters with percentages of records with missing Principal Diagnosis equal to or greater than 1% are identified below. Users should refer to OP7107_ReasonforVisitDiagnosis1, OP7108_ReasonforVisitDiagnosis2, OP7109_ReasonforVisitDiagnosis3, and OP7404_OtherDiagnosisCode1 through OP7426_OtherDiagnosisCode12 for additional diagnosis information where populated.

Mount Desert Island Hospital (200038) submitted 334 records (1.8% of all records for this hospital) with no principal diagnosis codes (OP7104_Principaldiagnosis) in 2023 Q1. The hospital confirmed that the missing principal diagnosis codes represent self-pay and client billing encounters. Client billing encounters are for limited services, like pre-employment physicals, drug screening and blood alcohol testing, provided to employees of businesses under contract with the hospital and for hospital employees.

Northern Maine Medical Center (200052) submitted 403 records (1.8% of all records for this hospital) with no principal diagnosis codes (OP7104_PrincipalDiagnosis) in 2023 Q1. The hospital identified those encounters with no principal diagnosis codes are primarily client billing encounters. Client billing encounters are for limited services, like pre-employment physicals, drug screening and blood alcohol testing, provided to employees of businesses under contract with the hospital and for hospital employees.
01/01/2023 03/31/2023
53 26 Reminder - Admission/Start of Care Date: The National Uniform Billing Committee (NUBC) standards require this date for UB-04 inpatient claims only (or to indicate the start of care date for home health or hospice services). NUBC standards require the date the outpatient services were provided and can be found in the following fields: OP6110_ServiceDate1, OP6117_ServiceDate2, and OP6124_ServiceDate3. 01/01/2023 03/31/2023
46 25 2022 Q4 Outpatient Release 25

This release contains October - December (Q4) 2022 Hospital Outpatient Encounter data for all Maine hospitals per the data submission requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Set and the data release requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 120, Release of Data to the Public. As defined in Rule Chapter 241, MHDO’s Hospital Outpatient Data pertains to the data generated for any patient visit that is not considered an inpatient admission, at any department of the hospital, regardless of its physical location. MHDO’s Hospital Outpatient Data also includes services provided by specialty groups or primary care practices when the hospital owns the data.

Data for all outpatient services of the hospital and all services provided by specialty groups or primary care practices must be filed in one or more outpatient data streams under the MHDO provider code assigned to that hospital.

Every encounter that is populated with a designated subset of CMS defined Place of Service codes (11,17, 20, 22, 49, 50, 71, 72) must include a Location of Service code, which is a homegrown code internally created by the Hospital and used primarily to identify the location of physician practices (primary care, specialty care and clinics). Hospital departments are not required to have a Location of Service code.

Note: Each hospital is required to submit annually (or prior to quarterly releases if there are new locations) an updated Location of Service crosswalk, which includes the internally created unique Location of Service code, full location name, address, city, state, zip code, and date (approximate in some cases) the location began providing services. The information submitted in the hospital crosswalks is made available to MHDO data users via a support table (Support_LOS_Code_Improved_Current). A new flag has been added to this table which indicates the most recent Location of Service code crosswalk. This flag is set to ‘1’ when the submission timestamp is the most recent and set to ‘0’ when it is not.
10/1/2022 12/31/2022
47 25 Outpatient Release 25: 2022 Q4 Hospital Specific Notes

Total Volume Quality Check: MHDO compared each hospitals outpatient encounter volume for Q4 2022 against Q3 2022 and flagged changes equal to or greater than 20%.

Increases in Outpatient Encounters: None

Decreases in Outpatient Encounters (may include hospital outpatient encounters and or encounters at hospital owned specialty groups or primary care practices).

Down East Community Hospital (200027) experienced a 24% decrease in 2022 Q4, which equates to a decrease of 5,613 encounters compared to 2022 Q3. The hospital confirmed the total visits are accurate adding they switched to a new EMR 10/17/22 and post go-live clinics deliberately reduced the number of patients being seen by 50%. Also, surgeries were down and there were reductions in ancillary services.

Encounters Missing Primary Payer Name: MHDO compares the number of records per quarter missing OP3009 Payer Name (Primary) against the total number of records per quarter. Hospitals with percentages of records with missing primary payer names equal to or greater than 1% are identified below with a statement from the hospital explaining the variation.

Mount Desert Island Hospital (200038) 1% encounters are missing primary payer name information in 2022 Q4. The missing information represents self-pay and client billing encounters. Client billing encounters are for limited services, like pre-employment physicals, drug screening and blood alcohol testing, provided to employees of businesses under contract and for hospital employees.
10/01/2022 12/31/2022
48 25 Diagnosis Codes: MHDO compares the number of records per quarter missing OP7104 Principal Diagnosis against the total number of records per quarter. Outpatient encounters with percentages of records with missing Principal Diagnosis equal to or greater than 1% are identified below with a statement from the hospital explaining the variation. Users should refer to OP7107_ReasonforVisitDiagnosis1, OP7108_ReasonforVisitDiagnosis2, OP7109_ReasonforVisitDiagnosis3, and OP7404_OtherDiagnosisCode1 through OP7426_OtherDiagnosisCode12 for additional diagnosis information where populated.

Mount Desert Island Hospital (200038) submitted 377 records (1.8% of all records for this hospital) with no principal diagnosis codes (OP7104_Principaldiagnosis) in 2022 Q4. The missing information represents self-pay and client billing encounters. Client billing encounters are for limited services, like pre-employment physicals, drug screening and blood alcohol testing, provided to employees of businesses under contract and for hospital employees.

Northern Maine Medical Center (200052) submitted 439 records (1.9% of all records for this hospital) with no principal diagnosis codes (OP7104_PrincipalDiagnosis) in 2022 Q4. This represents an improvement to the population of this field that will continue with future releases. The hospital confirmed that the records missing the principal diagnosis codes are primarily client billing encounters. Client billing encounters are for limited services, like pre-employment physicals, drug screening and blood alcohol testing, provided to employees of businesses under contract with the hospital and for hospital employees.
10/01/2022 12/31/2022
49 25 Reminder - Admission/Start of Care Date: The National Uniform Billing Committee (NUBC) standards require this date for UB-04 inpatient claims only (or to indicate the start of care date for home health or hospice services). NUBC standards require the date the outpatient services were provided and can be found in the following fields: OP6110_ServiceDate1, OP6117_ServiceDate2, and OP6124_ServiceDate3. 10/01/2022 12/31/2022
43 24 2022 Q3 Outpatient Release 24

This release contains July - September (Q3) 2022 Hospital Outpatient Encounter data for all Maine hospitals per the data submission requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Set and the data release requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 120, Release of Data to the Public. As defined in Rule Chapter 241, MHDO’s Hospital Outpatient Data pertains to the data generated for any patient visit that is not considered an inpatient admission, at any department of the hospital, regardless of its physical location. MHDO’s Hospital Outpatient Data also includes services provided by specialty groups or primary care practices when the hospital owns the data.

Data for all outpatient services of the hospital and all services provided by specialty groups or primary care practices must be filed in one or more outpatient data streams under the MHDO provider code assigned to that hospital. Every encounter that is populated with a designated subset of CMS defined Place of Service codes (11,17, 20, 22, 49, 50, 71, 72) must include a Location of Service code, which is a homegrown code internally created by the Hospital and primarily for physician practices (primary care, specialty care and clinics). Also, each hospital shall submit annually (or prior to quarterly releases if there are new locations) an updated Location of Service crosswalk, which includes the internally created unique Location of Service code, full location name, address, city, state, and zip code for those locations only, and the date the crosswalk was created. The information submitted in the crosswalk is made available to data users via a support table (Support_LOS_Code_Improved_Current).

NEW: A new flag has been added to this table which indicates the most recent Location of Service code crosswalk. This flag is set to ‘1’ when the submission timestamp is the most recent and set to ‘0’ when it is not.
07/1/2022 09/30/2022
44 24 Outpatient Release 24: 2022 Q3 Hospital Specific Notes

Total Volume Quality Check: MHDO compared each hospitals outpatient encounter volume for Q3 2022 against Q2 2022 and flagged changes equal to or greater than 20%.

Increases in Outpatient Encounters: None

Decreases in Outpatient Encounters: None

Encounters Missing Primary Payer Name: MHDO compares the number of records per quarter missing OP3009 Payer Name (Primary) against the total number of records per quarter. Hospitals with percentages of records with missing payer names equal to or greater than 1% are identified below with a statement from the hospital explaining the variation.

Mount Desert Island Hospital (200038) 1% encounters are missing primary payer name information in 2022 Q3. The missing information represents self-pay and client billing encounters.

NLH Mayo Regional Hospital (200066) 3.0% of encounters are missing primary payer name information in 2022 Q3. The hospital acknowledged the issue and has communicated a plan of action to the MHDO stating these encounters with missing primary payer information are mostly Workwise/Employee Health accounts which do not get billed to an insurance company, they are billed to the patient's employer. The issue was documented during the last release, and we expect to see it resolved in the Q4 2022 data.
07/1/2022 09/30/2022
45 24 Diagnosis Codes: MHDO compares the number of records per quarter missing OP7104 Principal Diagnosis against the total number of records per quarter. Outpatient encounters with percentages of records with missing Principal Diagnosis equal to or greater than 1% are identified below with a statement from the hospital explaining the variation.

Mount Desert Island Hospital (200038) submitted 313 records (1.51% of all records for this hospital) with no principal diagnosis codes (OP7104_Principaldiagnosis) in 2022 Q3. MHDO is working with the hospital to resolve this issue. This includes a data remediation provided by the hospital to resolve the issue for as many records as possible.

Northern Maine Medical Center (200052) submitted 1,148 records (4.9% of all records for this hospital) with no principal diagnosis codes (OP7104_PrincipalDiagnosis) in 2022 Q3. MHDO is working with the hospital to resolve this issue. This includes a data remediation provided by the hospital to resolve the issue for as many records as possible.
07/1/2022 09/30/2022
39 23 2022 Q2 Outpatient Release 23

This release contains April-June (Q2) 2022 Hospital Outpatient Encounter data for all Maine hospitals per the data submission requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Set and the data release requirements of MHDO Rule Chapter 120, Release of Data to the Public. As defined in Rule Chapter 241, MHDO’s Hospital Outpatient Data pertains to the data generated for any patient visit that is not considered an inpatient admission, at any department of the hospital, regardless of its physical location. MHDO’s Hospital Outpatient Data also includes services provided by specialty groups or primary care practices when the hospital owns the data.

Data for all outpatient services of the hospital and all services provided by specialty groups or primary care practices must be filed in one or more outpatient data streams under the MHDO provider code assigned to that hospital. Every encounter that is populated with a designated subset of CMS defined Place of Service codes (11,17, 20, 22, 49, 50, 71, 72) must include a Location of Service code, which is a homegrown code internally created by the Hospital and primarily for physician practices (primary care, specialty care and clinics). Also, each hospital shall submit annually (or prior to quarterly releases if there are new locations) an updated Location of Service crosswalk, which includes the internally created unique Location of Service code, full location name, address, city, state, and zip code for those locations only. The information submitted in the crosswalk is made available to data users via a support table (Support_LOS_Code_Improved_Current).
04/1/2022 06/30/2022
40 23 Outpatient Release 23: 2022 Q2 Hospital Specific Notes

Total Volume Quality Check: MHDO compared the hospitals outpatient encounter volume for each quarter against the previous quarter submitted and flagged changes equal to or greater than 20%.

Increases in Outpatient Encounters

New England Rehabilitation Hospital (200010) experienced a 26% increase in encounters in 2022 Q2, which equates to an increase of 52 encounters, compared to 2022 Q1. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their report stating this is just an increase in patient flow.

Decreases in Outpatient Encounters: None

Encounters Missing Primary Payer Name: MHDO compares the number of records per quarter missing OP3009 Payer Name (Primary) against the total number of records per quarter. Hospitals with percentages of records with missing payer names equal to or greater than 1% are identified below with a statement from the hospital for the variation.

Mount Desert Island Hospital (200038) 1.3% encounters are missing primary payer name information in 2022 Q2. The hospital stated these are self-pay and client billing encounters. Going forward the MHDO will identify these records as self-pay beginning with the Q3 2022 data release.

Northern Maine Medical Center (200052) 1.7% of encounters are missing primary payer name information in 2022 Q2. The hospital stated these are self-pay and client billing encounters. Going forward the MHDO will identify these records as self-pay beginning with the Q3 2022 data release.

NLH Mayo Regional Hospital (200066) 3.0% of encounters are missing primary payer name information in 2022 Q2. The hospital acknowledged the issue and has communicated a plan of action to the MHDO stating these encounters with missing primary payer information are mostly Workwise/Employee Health accounts which do not get billed to an insurance company, they are billed to the patient's employer. The issue was documented during the last release and we expect to see it resolved in the Q4 2022 data.
04/1/2022 06/30/2022
41 23 Length of Stay is the time between the earliest services (OP2011 Admission Start of Care Date) on the encounter record and the most recent services (OP2013 Statement Covers Period Thru) on the encounter record, so it does not represent a continuous “outpatient stay”. MHDO checks for records with a Length of Stay greater than 360 days, Hospitals with records meeting this criterion are identified below with a statement from the hospital for the variation.

Maine Behavioral Health (200067) submitted 2,517 records where length of stay is greater than 360 days in 2022 Q2 compared to 861 records in 2022 Q1 release. The issue was documented during the last release. We expect to see it resolved in the Q3 2022 data.
04/1/2022 06/30/2022
42 23 Diagnosis Codes: MHDO compares the number of records per quarter missing OP7104 Principal Diagnosis against the total number of records per quarter. Outpatient encounters with percentages of records with missing Principal Diagnosis equal to or greater than 1% are identified below with a statement from the hospital for the variation.

Mount Desert Island Hospital (200038) submitted 345 records (1.8% of all records for this hospital) with no principal diagnosis codes (OP7104_Principaldiagnosis) in 2022 Q2 compared to 67 records (0.5%) in 2022 Q1. MHDO is working with the hospital to resolve this issue. MHDO will notify data users when the updated information is available.

Maine General Medical Center Augusta (200015) submitted 1,404 records (1.1% of all records for this hospital) with no principal diagnosis codes (OP7104_PrincipalDiagnosis) in 2022 Q2 compared to 335 records (0.3%) in 2022 Q1. The hospital has since resolved the issue, and MHDO will notify data users when the updated information is available.

Northern Maine Medical Center (200052) submitted 11181 records (47.3% of all records for this hospital) with no principal diagnosis codes (OP7104_PrincipalDiagnosis) in 2022 Q2 compared to 10679 records (46.3%) in 2022 Q1, and 9910 records (43.8%) in 2021 Q4. MHDO is working with the hospital to resolve this issue. MHDO will notify data users when the updated information is available in January 2023.
04/1/2022 06/30/2022
36 22 2022 Q1 Outpatient Release 22

This release contains January – March (Q1) 2022 Hospital Outpatient Encounter data for all Maine hospitals required to submit data to the MHDO according to 90-590 Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets. The release of MHDO data is governed by 90-590 Chapter 120, Release of Data to the Public, and by the terms and conditions of the MHDO Data Use Agreement.
1/1/2022 3/31/2022
37 22 Outpatient Release 22: 2022 Q1 Hospital Specific Notes

Total Volume Quality Check: MHDO compared the hospitals encounter volume for each quarter against the previous quarter submitted and flagged changes equal to or greater than 20%.

Increase in Encounters

None.

Decreases in Encounters

Stephens Memorial Hospital (200032) experienced a 21% decrease in encounters in 2022 Q1, which equates to a decrease of 10,492 encounters compared to 2021 Q4. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting during 2021 Q4 and 2022 Q1.

Northern Light Blue Hill Hospital (200051) experienced a 22% decrease in encounters in 2022 Q1, which equates to a decrease of 6,010 encounters, compared to 2021 Q4. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating the decrease is due to reduced COVID testing & Covid-19 vaccinations.

Lincoln Health (201302) experienced a 22% decrease in encounters in 2022 Q1, which equates to a decrease of 12,870 encounters, compared to 2021 Q4. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.

Encounters Missing Primary Payer Volume Quality Check: MHDO compares the number of records per quarter missing OP3009 Payer Name (Primary) against the total number of records per quarter and identifies those with percentages equal to or greater than 1% in the Release Notes; and includes a statement from the hospital for the variation.

Northern Maine Medical Center (200052) 1.7% of encounters are missing primary payer name information. The hospital acknowledged the issue stating they continue to work with the vendor to resolve the problem behind the payer name not populating for self-pay and client billing encounters.

NLH Mayo Regional Hospital (200066) 3.9% of encounters are missing primary payer name information. The hospital acknowledged the issue and has communicated a plan of action to the MHDO. The issue will be resolved effective October 1, 2022.
1/1/2022 3/31/2022
38 22 Length of Stay

Maine Behavioral Health (MBH) (200067): There are 861 records where length of stay is greater than 360 days. There were 0 records in previous quarters. The hospital stated that if a patient has a plan of care for therapy, they register them with what is referred to as a parent account. That parent account has the statement covers period from date as the beginning date of the plan of care. From that parent account a monthly claim is generated to the insurance company until the patient is discharged from that plan of care. These monthly claims are referred to as the children accounts.

Beginning with Q3 2022 data, the statement covers period from date will be that of the children accounts (not the parent account), which represents the earliest date of service on a bill.
1/1/2022 3/31/2022
33 21 2021 Q4 Outpatient Release 21

This release contains October – December (Q4) 2021 Hospital Outpatient Encounter data for all Maine hospitals required to submit data to the MHDO according to 90-590 Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets. The release of MHDO data is governed by 90-590 Chapter 120, Release of Data to the Public, and by the terms and conditions of the MHDO Data Use Agreement.
10/1/2021 12/31/2021
34 21 Outpatient Release 21: 2021 Q4 Hospital Specific Notes

Total Volume Quality Check: MHDO compared the hospitals encounter volume for each quarter against the previous quarter submitted and flagged changes equal to or greater than 20%.

Increases in Encounters

Stephens Memorial Hospital (200032) experienced a 24% encounter increase in 2021 Q4, which equates to an increase of 9,525 encounters compared to 2021 Q3. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating during 2021 Q3 elective services at this location were reduced due to COVID. Resumption of elective services began during Q4 2021.

Northern Light Blue Hill Hospital (200051) experienced a 21% encounter increase in 2021 Q4, which equates to an increase of 4,295 encounters, compared to 2021 Q3. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating the increase is due COVID testing due to exposures.

Decreases in Encounters

None.

Encounters Missing Primary Payer Volume Quality Check: MHDO compares the number of records per quarter missing OP3009 Payer Name (Primary) against the total number of records per quarter and identifies those with percentages equal to or greater than 1% in the Release Notes; and includes a statement from the hospital for the variation.

Northern Maine Medical Center (200052) 2.19% of encounters are missing primary payer name information.The hospital confirmed the increase stating the missing payers are either self-pay or client billing. Client billing means the employer pays. There has been a drastic increase in client billing because if an NMMC employee needs to test for COVID, NMMC pays for it.

Mayo Regional Hospital (200066) 4.6% of encounters are missing primary payer name information.The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating the reason is because these accounts are client billed (Workwise (Work comp)/Employee Health accounts), so there is no payer name in the system. The increase is due to higher volume of Mayo Employee Covid testing.
10/1/2021 12/31/2021
35 21 Updates to the Location of Service Support Table

This release includes updates to the Location of Service (LOS) Support Table.

Starting with this release, the LOS_Description column is replaced by columns that contain the submitted location name, address and start/end dates separately (LocationName, Address1, Address2, City, State, ZIP_Code, StartDate, and EndDate, respectively). Additionally: the CompanyName column is relabeled as FacilityName; three new columns are added to provide information on the source file for the LOS code, specifically CrosswalkID, CrosswalkFileName, SubmissionTS; vliCompanyID is retired as it does not link to any other releasable file and it does not provide additional useful information beyond the FacilityID column. Note: Prior to this release, the LOS support table included the location name and street address plus the start/end dates concatenated into a single column (LOS_Description).
N/A N/A
30 20 2021 Q3 Outpatient Release

This release contains July - September (Q3) 2021 Hospital Outpatient Encounter data for all Maine hospitals required to submit data to the MHDO according to 90-590 Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets.
7/1/2021 9/30/2021
31 20 Outpatient Release 20: 2021 Q3 Hospital Specific Notes

Total Volume Quality Check: MHDO compares the hospitals encounter volume for each quarter against the hospitals previous quarter of data and identifies changes equal to or greater than 20% in the Release Notes; and includes a statement from the hospital for the variation.

Increases in Volume: None

Decreases in Volume:

Northern Light Mercy Hospital (200008) experienced a 30% decrease in 2021 Q3 compared to 2021 Q2. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating the decrease in volume is due to less Covid vaccinations given this quarter vs the prior quarter. Last quarter was a mass community effort for the Covid vaccination.

Northern Light C.A. Dean Hospital (200023) experienced a 32% decrease in 2021 Q3 compared to 2021 Q2. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating, less patients were seen during this quarter because there was a higher volume of Covid Vaccine Clinics done in Q2, then in Q3.

Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center (200033) experienced a 27% decrease in 2021 Q3 compared to 2021 Q2. The hospital confirmed the accuracy of their reporting stating they are trending back to the normal volume prior to covid outbreak.

Encounters Missing Primary Payer Volume Quality Check:

There are a few submitters that have encounters that are missing primary payer information; the percentage of missing primary care payer information for 2021 Q3 quarter is less than 0.1%.

Northern Maine Medical Center (200052): 1% of encounters are missing primary payer information. The hospital stated that the missing payer information is for encounters that are either self-pay or client billing. Client billing means the employer pays. For example, if an NMMC employee needs to test for COVID NMMC pays for it. The MHDO is working with the submitter to enter self-pay or client billing as payer names for these encounters in future submissions.
7/1/2021 9/30/2021
32 20 Facility Information Update

The following hospital submitters have updated information in the Support Facilities table:

Northern Light Maine Coast Physician Offices (200072): Status changed to Deactivated with Note, “Beginning 7/2021, data is submitted with Northern Light Maine Coast Hospital outpatient data under MHDO ID 200050”.
N/A N/A
26 19 2021 Q2 Outpatient Release 19

This release contains April - June (Q2) 2021 Hospital Outpatient Encounter data for all Maine hospitals required to submit data to the MHDO according to Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets.
4/1/2021 6/30/2021
27 19 Outpatient Release 19: 2021 Q2 Hospital Specific Notes

Total Volume Quality Check: MHDO compares the hospitals encounter volume for each quarter against the hospitals previous quarter of data and identifies changes equal to or greater than 20% in the Release Notes; and includes a statement from the hospital for the variation.

Increases in Volume

Northern Light Mercy Hospital (200008) experienced a 25% increase in 2021 Q2 volume compared to 2021 Q1 volume. The hospital confirmed the accuracy with the following explanation: “Increase is due to Covid 19 vaccines and Covid related visits.”

New England Rehabilitation Hospital (200010) experienced a 28% increase in 2021 Q2 volume compared to 2021 Q1 volume. The hospital confirmed the accuracy with the following explanation: “This number is accurate. We had a very good 2nd quarter for outpatient therapy.”

4/1/2021 6/30/2021
28 19 Outpatient Release 19: 2021 Q2 Hospital Specific Notes Continued

Self-Pay Volume Quality Check: MHDO compared the hospitals self-pay encounter volume for each quarter against the previous quarters submitted and flagged changes that are larger than historical volume. Each data submitter below has reviewed and confirmed the accuracy of these changes.

Northern Light C.A. Dean Hospital (200023) experienced an increase in the percentage of encounters reported as Self-Pay during April 2021 as compared to previous quarters. During this period 8% of approximately 560 encounters were reported as Self-Pay.

Northern Light Blue Hill Hospital (200051) experienced an increase in the percentage of encounters reported as Self-Pay during April 2021 and May 2021 as compared to previous quarters. During this period 9% of approximately 910 encounters were Self-Pay.

Northern Light Mercy Hospital (200008) experienced an increase in the percentage of encounters reported as Self-Pay during April 2021 and May 2021 as compared to previous quarters. During this period 7%-8% of approximately of 2,000-3,000 encounters were reported as Self-Pay.

Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center (200033) experienced an increase in the percentage of encounters reported as Self-Pay during April 2021 and May 2021 as compared to previous quarters. During this period 6% of approximately 5,100 encounters were reported as Self-Pay for April and 5% of 2,900 encounters for May 2021.

Waldo County General Hospital (200013) experienced an increase in the percentage of encounters reported as Self-Pay during April 2021 and May 2021. During this period 11%-12% of approximately 1,000 encounters were reported as Self-Pay for April and May 2021.

4/1/2021 6/30/2021
29 19 Outpatient Release 19: 2021 Q1 Data Resubmissions

Maine Behavioral Health (200067) and Maine Medical Center (200009):

This release includes a resubmission of Q1 2021 outpatient hospital data for these two submitters. It was discovered that data from four Maine Behavioral Health departments were mistakenly reported in the Maine Medical Center files. Data users of data release version 18 are not missing any data for these entities, instead the facility identified in the data was not correct. The facility confirmed that the reason for the misidentification was due to the transition to a new EMR system on 2/27/21. The issue has been resolved and updated files have been submitted to MHDO.
1/1/2021 3/31/2021
21 18 2021 Q1 Outpatient Release 18

This release contains January - March (Q1) 2021 Hospital Outpatient Encounter data for all Maine hospitals required to submit data to the MHDO according to Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets.
1/1/2021 3/31/2021
22 18 Outpatient Release 18: 2021 Q1 Hospital Specific Notes

Total Volume Quality Check: MHDO compares the hospitals encounter volume for each quarter against the hospitals previous quarter of data and identifies changes equal to or greater than 20% in the Release Notes; and includes a statement from the hospital for the variation.

Increases in Volume

Maine Medical Center (200009) experienced a 24% increase in 2021 Q1 volume compared to 2020 Q4 volume. The hospital confirmed the accuracy with the following explanation: “Volume increase attributed to COVID vaccinations.”

Northern Light AR Gould Hospital (200018) experienced a 24% increase in 2021 Q1 volume compared to 2020 Q4 volume. The hospital confirmed the accuracy with the following explanation: “Higher volume is due to increase in Covid vaccines and Covid Labs. Volume is correct.”

Northern Light C.A. Dean Hospital (200023) experienced a 39% increase in 2021 Q1 volume compared to 2020 Q4 volume. The hospital confirmed the accuracy with the following explanation: “The volume of 13,663 for CAD Q1 2021 is correct. The increase volume is related to Covid-19 Vaccination and Covid-19 lab encounters. Covid-19 vaccination is a two shot series 21 days apart. Each patient receiving the two shot series generated two encounter numbers.”

Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center (200033) experienced a 36% increase in 2021 Q1 volume compared to 2020 Q4 volume. The hospital confirmed the accuracy with the following explanation: “The increased volume of 210,279 is correct (from 155,084 from the 4th Qtr. 2020). This increased volume is directly linked to COVID-19 vaccinations and COVID-19 lab encounters. Because the majority of the COVID-19 vaccinations are two-dose series, each of those patients receiving both shots generated two encounter numbers, thus accounting for the large volume increase during the first quarter of 2021.”

Spring Harbor Hospital (Maine Behavioral Healthcare) (200067) experienced a 75% increase in 2021 Q1 volume compared to 2020 Q4 volume. The hospital confirmed the accuracy with the following explanation: The main reason for the large increase in volume is that when they switched to the EPIC EMR (2/27/21) they began submitting data for outpatient services they provide at their other locations. It went from two to 56 locations in all that fall under the Maine Behavioral Health scope.

Stephens Memorial Hospital (200032) experienced a 21% increase in 2021 Q1 volume compared to 2020 Q4 volume. The hospital confirmed the accuracy with the following explanation: “Volume increase attributed to COVID vaccinations.”

Waldo County General Hospital (200013) experienced a 25% increase in 2021 Q1 volume compared to 2020 Q4 volume. The hospital confirmed the accuracy with the following explanation: “Volume increase attributed to COVID vaccinations.”

Decrease in Volume

New England Rehabilitation Hospital (200010) experienced a 24% decrease in 2021 Q1 volume compared to 2020 Q4 volume. The hospital confirmed the accuracy with the following explanation: “These numbers are correct. The inclement weather/threat of inclement weather and a decline in referrals combined to reduce our volume for Q1 2021.”
1/1/2021 3/31/2021
23 18 Self-Pay Volume Quality Check: MHDO compared the hospitals self-pay encounter volume for each quarter against the previous quarters submitted and flagged changes that are larger than historical volume.

Southern Maine Health Care (200019) 9% of encounters were Self- Pay for March 2021 with volume of 3,554 encounters, 5%-6% for Jan and Feb 2021 and 2020 most months with around 1,000 encounters.

Mount Desert Island Hospital (200038) 16% of encounters were Self-Pay for March 2021 with volume of 663 encounters, 7%-13% for Jan and Feb 2021 and 2020 months with 100-400 encounters.

Mid Coast Hospital (200044) 13% of encounters were Self-Pay for Jan 2021 with volume of 2,152 encounters, 7%-9% for Feb and March 2021 and 2020 months with 500-1500 encounters.

Encounters Missing Primary Payer Volume Quality Check: There are a few submitters that have encounters that are missing primary payer information; the percentage out of the total volume for 2021 Q1 quarter is less than 0.1%.

Northern Light Mayo Hospital (200066) 2%- 3% of encounters are missing primary payer information; these findings are consistent with what was observed in previous quarters.

Length of Stay Quality Check: The volume of encounters where the length of stay is greater than one, has increased for several hospitals. (Time frame between dates coded in the Statement Covers Period From field and the date in the Statement Covers Period Thru field). These encounters are primarily associated with administration of two-dose COVID vaccines. These facilities confirmed that rather than a patient having two separate services, they coded the two dose vaccines as recurring services (traditionally used for therapies, some lab, radiation therapy etc.) such that the start date was the first dose, and the second dose was the end date.

- Bridgton Hospital - 2021 Q1 18% of encounters, which is a change from an average of 3% in 2017-2020.
- Rumford Hospital - 2021 Q1 for 20% of encounters, which is a change from an average of 5% in 2017-2020 quarters.
- Central Maine Medical Center – 2021 Q1for 10% of encounters, which is a change from an average of 2% in 2017-2020 quarters.
1/1/2021 3/31/2021
24 18 Location of Service (LOS)

As the COVID-19 vaccine became available in 2021 Q1, many hospitals opened new vaccine clinic locations. As a result, users will see an increased number of new Location of Service (LOS) codes and descriptions available in this release. For example, Northern Light Eastern Main Medical Center (200033) had over 50,000 encounters take place at the City of Bangor-Bass Park COVID testing location. Maine Medical Center (200009) had over 40,000 encounters take place at a COVID vaccination clinic at the former Scarborough Downs harness racing track.
1/1/2021 3/31/2021
25 18 Facility Information Update

The following hospital submitters have an updated name (ifFacilityName) in the Support Facilities table:

Mayo Regional Hospital (200066): changed from “Mayo Regional Hospital” to ”Northern Light Mayo Hospital”

Spring Harbor Hospital (200067): changed from “Spring Harbor Hospital” to ”Maine Behavioral Health”
N/A N/A
20 17 2019 Outpatient Release 17 – Mount Desert Island Resubmission

This release contains January - December 2019 Hospital Outpatient Encounter data for Mount Desert Island Hospital (200038).
Mount Desert Island recently corrected an error in their reporting of clinic data. They have resubmitted their 2019 data to now include encounters from 6-7 health centers owned by MDI hospital. As a result, the volume of outpatient encounters reported to the MHDO has increased from approximately 41,000 encounters to approximately 86,000 encounters. The resubmitted volume is consistent with the approximately 84,000 encounters in 2020.
1/1/2019 12/31/2019
15 12 2020 Outpatient Release 12

This release contains January - December 2020 Hospital Outpatient Encounter data for all Maine hospitals required to submit data to the MHDO according to Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets.
1/1/2020 12/31/2020
16 12 2020 Outpatient Release 12 Hospital Specific Notes

Total Volume Quality Check: MHDO compares the hospitals encounter volume for each quarter against the hospitals previous quarter of data and identifies changes equal to or greater than 20% in the Release Notes; and includes a statement from the hospital for the variation.

In 2020, many facilities experienced considerable volume decreases in Q2, gradual increases in Q3, and volumes nearing normal again in Q4. Each facility confirmed the accuracy of the data submitted, and most have indicated that the reduction or increase in encounters is in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In an effort to streamline the release notes, we have not listed every facility and their volume changes by quarter in 2020 that are due to the pandemic. However, we have noted two facilities and their volume changes in 2020 below.

Mount Desert Island Hospital (200038): MDI recently corrected an error in their reporting of clinic data. As a result, the volume of encounter records more than doubled in 2020 compared to 2019 (84,190 encounters reported in 2020 versus 41,396 encounters reported in 2019). MDI has since resubmitted 2019 data which can be made available to data users if interested.

New England Rehabilitation Hospital (200010) confirmed that they had a 46% increase in Q1 due to discharging patients in March due to the pandemic. Q2 volume decreased 99% (No encounters for April or May and 4 encounters reported for the month of June) due to the complete shutdown of outpatient therapy services mid-March thru beginning of July.

ED Volume Quality Check: MHDO compares each hospital's 2020 quarterly ED % against their prior year's overall ED %. Differences of 10 percentage points or more are identified in the Release note; and includes a statement from the hospital for the variation. Notes for identified facilities are below.

Mount Desert Island Hospital (200038): ED visits decreased in 2020. The facility has confirmed the accuracy with the following explanation: “We had a decrease in 2020 of ED visits due to COVID and travel restrictions. Our ED volume typically increases during the summer months due to International travel (Cruise ships, etc.) and domestic travel (personal vehicles and tour buses). We did not have any of that last year.”

Primary Payer Quality Check: MHDO compares the number of records per quarter missing OP3009 Payer Name (Primary) against the total number of records per quarter and identifies percentages equal to or greater than 1% in the Release Notes; and includes a statement from the hospital to explain the missing information.

Mayo Regional Hospital (200066), 2% of 2020 records are missing the primary payer information. This facility has confirmed the accuracy with the following explanation: “These files look like employee health visits. The payor for these is the employer the patient works for.” MHDO is working with the hospital to have information included in OP3009 in future submissions so that MHDO can code these values as the ‘11’ Other payer category.
1/1/2020 12/31/2020
17 12 Enhanced Deidentified Person ID

The enhanced deidentified MHDO-assigned replacement Person ID is meant to be unique for a given person regardless of hospital. This field appears in the base release layout as OPMB10_PersonID and contains integer values.
1/1/2020 N/A
18 12 Enhanced Provider ID

The enhanced MHDO-assigned replacement Provider ID is a single integer identifier that is assigned to a provider (regardless of whether that provider is acting as an operating provider, an attending provider, or a billing provider) on a given encounter. Each MHDO assigned provider ID is associated with no more than one NPI.

For data releases that include Provider Identifiable data as outlined in Chapter 120, the following revised MHDO-assigned replacement fields are included: OPMB11_Attending_ProviderID, OPMB12_Operating_ProviderID, OPMB13_Billing_ProviderID.

To support the enhanced MHDO-assigned replacement Provider ID, authorized data users will receive an updated support table vwSupport_Provider_Details beginning with this release. The table will provide one row for each Provider ID with provider details as authorized under Chapter 120 for release, such as NPI and, for data users authorized to receive provider identifiable information, provider name. A text file named vwSupport_Provider_Details_Layout with the layout of this file will also be included in this release.
1/1/2020 N/A
19 12 Facility Information Update

Upon a review of the Hospital System column (ifHospitalSystem) in the Support Facilities table, MHDO uncovered some missing information. This only impacts the support table used to identify hospitals and the systems they are affiliated with, not the data themselves. The following hospital submitters have corrected hospital system values as follows:

Penobscot Valley Hospital (200062): change from “Maine Health” to blank
MaineGeneral Medical Center Augusta (200015): change from blank to “MaineGeneral Health”
MaineGeneral Medical Center Waterville (200039): change from blank to “MaineGeneral Health”
New England Rehabilitation Hospital (200010): change from blank to “MaineHealth”
Franklin Memorial Hospital (200037): change from blank to “MaineHealth”
Mid Coast Hospital (200044): change from blank to “MaineHealth”
Mayo Regional Hospital (200066): change from blank to “Northern Light Health”
St. Joseph Hospital (200001): change from blank to “St. Joseph Healthcare”
St. Mary's Regional Medical Center (200034): change from blank to “St. Mary's Health System”

As a result of the changes listed above, the following submitters, affiliated with one of the facilities mentioned, also needed to have their hospital system value updated:
MaineGeneral Physician Offices (200070): change from blank to “MaineGeneral Health”
LSS - Franklin-Physicians Offices (200092): change from blank to “MaineHealth”
ECW - Franklin Physician Offices (200096): change from blank to “MaineHealth”

N/A N/A
11 11 2019 Outpatient Release 11
This release contains January - December 2019 Hospital Outpatient Encounter data for all Maine hospitals required to submit data to the MHDO according to Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets.
1/1/2019 12/31/2019
12 11 New Release Field: The base release layout now includes a new field, OP4006_Place_of_Service, which contains CMS codes indicating the specific type of professional bill. 1/1/2019 12/31/2019
13 11 Updates to the Location of Service support table
Starting with the 2019 Outpatient release, the vwSupport_LOS_Codes table includes a new field, Start_Date. In the 2019 release this field displays the date when the respective row was loaded to the support table in the data warehouse. In next year's 2020 release this field will display, where provided, a date collected directly from submitters about the date the location began providing services. Additionally, MHDO has begun collecting a date the location moved or stopped providing services. The respective start and end dates are passed on to data users in the LOS_Description field. A date value of N/A signifies that the submitters left the respective information unspecified; as per submission guidelines, end dates with the N/A value indicate that the LOS code is still active.
1/1/2019 12/31/2019
14 11 Hospital Specific Notes:

Total Encounters-Volume
Total Volume Quality Check: We compared the volume for 2019 Q1-Q4 quarters against their previous quarter (each of 2018 Q1 through 2019 Q3, respectively) and flagged potential issues if the volume changes are equal to or greater than 20%. Notes for flagged facilities are below.

ECW - Franklin Physician Offices (200096): The MHDO assigned provider ID for ECW-Franklin Physician Offices of 200096 was terminated beginning with Q2 2019 data submission. As of Q2 2019 all data for ECW-Franklin Physician Offices has been consolidated into the Franklin Memorial Hospital MHDO ID 200037.

Also, similar to what was noted for the CY 2018 outpatient release for Franklin Physician Offices, there is a relatively high volume of partial duplicates (47% of the total 18,083 records from this submitter) for their Q1 2019 data, meaning that they share the same patient information (date of birth, gender, etc.), statement covers period from and thru dates, Medical Health Record Number, discharge status and some other key fields. We continue to recommend, for records submitted with MHDO ID 200096 (note, this is their final submission under this ID), that users develop queries tailored to look across encounters in order to retrieve details for unique outpatient visits.

Franklin Memorial Hospital (200037): Consistent with what is stated above, starting with Q2 2019, the ECW- Franklin Physician Offices (200096) data is being reported with the hospital data stream (200037). As such the total number of outpatient encounters reported under the MHDO ID 200037 has increased in 2019, compared to 2018.

Mayo Regional Hospital (200066): The volume for Q1 increased (compared to 2018 Q4). The volume increase for 2019 OP data is due to it being the first-year clinic data has been submitted to MHDO.

Northern Light Inland Hospital (200041): The 2019 encounter volume is lower than in 2018. As noted in the 2018 release, in Q4 there was a decrease in Inland Hospital’s outpatient encounters due to the implementation of a new EMR system, where ancillary services began to be billed under one patient account rather than separate accounts/encounters.

Northern Light Mercy Hospital (200008): In December 2018, after switching to a new EMR system, the affiliated clinic data (previously submitted separately under 200078) began to be submitted with this hospital outpatient data MHDO ID 200008. As a result, the 2019 volume for 200008 is higher than the 2018 volume but the total 2019 volume decreased when compared to what was previously submitted under the two MHDO IDs previously used. There are three main reasons. The first is that the overall patient census on the hospital side has been declining since January for both surgical, PT/OT and ancillary services. The second is that the facility’s practices were still not booking at 100% capacity until mid-March due to the EHR implementation from December 2018. The third reason is that their ENT practice went from 4 providers down to one until May 2019, this practice is just beginning to get back up to 100% volume.

ED Volume

Mount Desert Island Hospital (200038): There is an increase in ED visits in CY 2019 compared to CY 2018, specifically the increase occurs in Q3 2019. MDI has stated that this increase is due to their summer tourism volume.

Encounters Missing Primary Payer Information

Mayo Regional Hospital (200066): Approximately 2% of their outpatient encounters are missing primary payer information in each quarter of 2019. This share stands out especially because prior to 2019 (2016-2018) there were no encounters missing primary payer information. Mayo provided information on the missing primary payer information confirming that “all these records are associated with the Workwise program which is an occupational health program for employers and for employees of businesses in the area. There is no insurance listed because the hospital bills the employer, or the “client”, not an insurance company”. MHDO is working with the hospital to determine how to code these claims in future submissions.
1/1/2019 12/31/2019
5 6 Remapping of 2005-2011 Hospital Outpatient Encounter Data

This release contains the remapping of the historical 2005-2011 Hospital Outpatient Encounter data into the current release layout.
1/1/2005 12/31/2011
6 7 2018 Outpatient Release 7

This release contains January - December 2018 Hospital Outpatient Encounter data for all Maine hospitals required to submit data to the MHDO according to Rule Chapter 241, Uniform Reporting System for Hospital Inpatient and Hospital Outpatient Data Sets
1/1/2018 12/31/2018
7 7 Facility Name and System Changes

As of October 1, 2018, Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems (EMHS) and the facilities affiliated with it became Northern Light Health. The following changes have been made in the Support Facilities file. Additionally, their Hospital System name has been changed from EMHS to Northern Light Health.

Hospitals:
- (200004) Acadia Hospital » Northern Light Acadia Hospital
- (200051) Blue Hill Memorial Hospital » Northern Light Blue Hill Hospital
- (200023) C.A. Dean Memorial Hospital » Northern Light C.A. Dean Hospital
- (200033) Eastern Maine Medical Center » Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center
- (200041) Inland Hospital » Northern Light Inland Hospital
- (200050) Maine Coast Memorial Hospital » Northern Light Maine Coast Hospital
- (200008) Mercy Hospital » Northern Light Mercy Hospital
- (200028) Sebasticook Valley Health » Northern Light Sebasticook Valley Hospital
- (200018) The Aroostook Medical Center » Northern Light AR Gould Hospital

Physician Practices (who submit encounter data to MHDO under separate IDs from the parent hospital):
- (200072) Maine Coast Physician Offices » Northern Light Maine Coast Physician Offices
- (200078) Mercy Outpatient Provider Clinics » Northern Light Mercy Outpatient Provider Clinics

We do not currently have updated information for all of the physician practices in the Location of Service support table and are working with Northern Light to make sure this information is available.
10/1/2018 n/a
8 7 Hospital Specific Notes:

Total Encounters-Volume

St. Joseph Hospital (200001) and St Mary’s Regional Medical Center (200034): We observed a significant change in the volume of encounters reported in Q2 2018. When we asked the hospital about this change they reported the following:
"What we think we’re seeing for the differences between the systems (Meditech vs. EPIC) is due to provider billing. For some provider billing purposes in the legacy system a separate visit/encounter was created for the same date as the hospital outpatient visit. In our new EPIC system, we do not have to take those additional steps for provider billing. The difference seen in the counters in the files once we switched over to EPIC was from changing over at the middle of the quarter, we went live on EPIC, May 13th."

Northern Light Mercy Outpatient Provider Clinics (200078): In December 2018 Mercy switched to a new EMR system and began submitting their outpatient clinic data (previously submitted separately under 200078) with their 200008 hospital outpatient data stream. During their EMR conversion the practices were only booking at 25% volume for the month of December and experienced decreases in patient visits hospital wide.

Northern Light Inland Hospital (200041): In Q4 there was a decrease in Inland Hospital’s outpatient encounters due to several factors. A new EMR was implemented, patient visits decreased during this system change over, and ancillary services began to be billed under one patient account rather than separate accounts/encounters.

York Hospital (200020): We observed an increase in volume of encounters in October 2018. The facility confirmed that the volume for the year is correct, but some discharge dates have shifted due to a malfunction in the automatic discharge setup and cannot be changed. While the information reported is substantially correct, some of the monthly volume of discharges by discharge month between October and December will vary, most of which is due to much higher volumes in the month of October vs. December. Length of stay calculations are impacted as well.

Payer Category Observations: Self Pay (Primary Payer only)

St. Joseph Hospital (200001): reported a monthly average of 167 self-pay encounters in 2017, which increased to an average of 495 in 2018. Hospital explained that prior to the change to the new EMR, they had self-pay and charity care separate. Now the two are under self-pay only; therefore, increasing the total.

Other Notes:

Northern Light Inland Hospital (200041): Because of financial hardship per the request of Northern Light, MHDO allowed Inland Hospital to submit their 1/1/2018 through 10/31/2018 physician practice data in the pre-2018 Chapter 241 format. Note: The pre-2018 format did not include the following five elements and therefore are not included in these data.

OP2018 Patient Country Code
OP2019 Patient Last Name
OP2020 Patient First Name
OP2023 Patient Address Line
OP4006 Place of Service

ECW - Franklin Physician Offices (200096): Records from this submitter have a substantial proportion (51%) of records that have been preliminarily detected as partial duplicates, meaning that they share the same patient information (date of birth, gender, etc.), statement covers period from and thru dates, Medical Health Record Number, discharge status and some other key fields. For the vast majority of these records, though not all, there are different values in fields such as service codes and corresponding charge amounts, or provider NPIs. As a rule, any records that are initially detected as partial duplicates where variation is observed in terms of the OP9004 Total Ancillary Charges or provider NPIs are not furthered processed as partial duplicates in our system. Given the findings for this submitter’s 2018 records, the majority of their 2018 records are included in this release. These records are equally distributed between the four quarters of CY2018. We recommend, for this particular submitter, that users develop queries tailored to look across encounters in order to retrieve details for unique outpatient visits.
1/1/2018 12/31/2018
9 8 New Payer Category Codes – Patch File for Outpatient data prior to Q1 2018.

Release 8 contains Hospital Outpatient Encounter records that were released prior to Q1 2018.This release contains encounter rows that have had at least one of the following fields updated: OPMPY20_PAY1, OPMPY21_PAY2, OPMPY22_PAY3. The MHDO periodically reassesses payer names that were assigned Payer Category Codes of ‘99’ or null in previous releases to determine whether newly received data have brought the number of encounters associated with these names above the “10 or more encounters” threshold. Previously unassigned payer names found to be above this threshold are assigned a Payer Category Code and encounters that previously were coded with a null or ‘99’ are then updated with the new code. Enclave users and new data applicants who request data extracts in this date range will have access to the updated values.

A patch file with these new Payer Category Codes is available by request for current data users who previously received data extracts in this date range.
1/1/2009 12/31/2017
10 9 Previously Missing 2017 Outpatient Data, Now Available – Patch File

2017 Outpatient data are now available for the following facilities:
Northern Light Maine Coast Physician Offices (200072) – New data for Q4 2017
Mount Desert Island Hospital (200038) – New data for Q2 & Q4 2017
4/2017 12/2017
1 5 New Release File: This release contains a new file: OP61_Narrow. This file contains the same detail information as the existing OP61 file. However, it has been restructured. Rather than each row having three sets of fields documenting revenue codes, HCPCS codes, etc., the OP61_Narrow format only has a single set of fields. So, if an encounter has 2 records with all fields populated on the OP61 table with OP6102_SequenceNumbers 1-2, these would appear as 6 records on OP61_Narrow with OP6102_SequenceNumbers 1-6. The MHDO will continue to supply the OP61 information in both formats for reasons of backwards compatibility. 1/1/2017 12/31/2017
2 5 Hospital Specific Notes:
Calais Regional Hospital (200055) – lower counts in February 2017 due to loss of physicians and services at hospital.

Mount Desert Island Hospital (200038) – lower count in February 2017 due to few of the high-volume providers on vacation during that month, having significant impact on their volume.

Pen Bay Medical Center (200063) - lower record count for Pen Bay physician clinic data is due to the change in EMR vendors. The new system includes multiple procedures in one encounter record; whereas previous did not.
1/1/2017 12/31/2017
3 5 Missing Data:

Maine Coast Physician Offices (200072) – Missing Q4 2017 data due to unresolved issues with their data vendor. MHDO is working with submitter in hopes that the missing Q4 2017 data will be submitted and included in the next release of hospital outpatient data.

Mount Desert Island Health Centers (200086) – Missing data due to issues with new vendor and system. MHDO is working with submitter in hopes that the missing Q4 2017 data will be submitted and included in the next release of hospital outpatient data.

Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center (200057) – Dorothea Dix reported to MHDO that they do not have final bills for Q4 2017 and will include any Q4 2017 outpatient encounters in the next reporting cycle.
1/1/2017 12/31/2017
4 5 Closings:
Riverview Psychiatric Center-Medication Management Clinic (200056) –Riverview notified the MHDO that their Medication Management Clinic closed January 2017, so beginning with Q1 2017 there will be no outpatient claims to submit.
1/1/2017 12/31/2017

Prior Releases

6/30/17 2016 Outpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released today

The following documents were provided to users as part of the release.

6/13/17 2016 Inpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released 6/13/17

The following documents were provided to users as part of the release.

4/21/17 2015 Outpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released 4/21/17

The following documents were provided to users as part of the release.

3/20/17 2015 Inpatient Hospital Encounter Data Released 3/17/17

The following documents were provided to users as part of the release.

5/2/16 2014 Inpatient and Oupatient Hospital Encounter Data Released 4/29/16

The following documents were provided to users as part of the release.

Update 4/11/16 2013 Outpatient Data Released on 3/11/16: See the 2013 Hospital Outpatient Data Release Notes

Update 4/11/16 2012 Hospital Data and 2013 Inpatient Hospital Data Refresh

On 3/11/16 MHDO released a refresh of the 2012 Inpatient and Outpatient data and of the 2013 Inpatient data.

The refresh release notes are below.

Update 12/4/15 Corrections/Clarifications to the release notes for 2012 hospital inpatient and outpatient, and 2013 inpatient data were made available. The release documentation is available upon request. Call 207 287-6722 or email Webcontact.MHDO@maine.gov.

11/4/15 Data Release: 2012 Inpatient, 2012 Outpatient, and 2013 Inpatient Data Were Released

Information Regarding 2012 Outpatient Data Release of 8/15/14:

In spite of the extensive internal and external QC that is performed on data prior to release, an issue involving duplicate records has only now been uncovered in the Maine 2012 Outpatient data which was released in August of 2014. In total, there were 49,985 records that appear more than once, most often under two different hospitals. This represents 0.8% of the total release data.

The duplicate system ID file contains a list of record ID (Sysid) that need to be removed from the release data to correct for this error. Any record on either the Encounter or Detail table that has a Sysid on the list should be removed from any analysis of the data.

Removing these records from the previously sent data seems to be the most expedient way to resolve this issue, as users will have already loaded the data into their systems. Any user that would prefer to receive a complete replacement of the release files should contact the MHDO.

Going forward an additional check will be added to the internal QC process to identify and remove any exact duplicate records prior to release.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Karynlee Harrington at 207-446-0890.

Outpatient Hospital Encounter Data for CY 2012 were released 8/15/2014. As we continue to work on improving our documentation we provided users with several documents as part of the release.