Medicare Spending Overview: An Interactive App

Coursera Data Science Specialization
Data Products Course
Course Project

The U.S. government spends a significant amount of money on Medicare. The public should have an easy to use app to better understand where the money is going.

Discretionary Spending 2015

Discretionary Spending 2015

Raw Data

• Inpatient Spending by state, service and year
• Outpatient Spending by state, service and year
• Spending on top prescription drugs by drug name and year

Data Manipulation
Prescription spending data are aggregated by drug indication (www.drugs.com website, brand-name drugs are classified by disease or therapy) as the indication is more meaningful than a brand name of drug. Inpatient/outpatient spending are computed per capita (using 2015 population estimates from www.census.gov/popest/data/).

Chart and Table Output

• Total spending is shown by year as a broad overview in an interactive stacked bar chart.
• Per capita spending on inpatient and outpatient care are aggregated by state over all years, and shown as an interactive geo-map chart.
• Top prescription spending is aggregated by drug indication and year. The data are displayed as a line chart. The data are limited to the indication selected by the user.

Sample Output

Adding More Data

• Data on medical equipment and supplies (e.g. wheelchairs or oxygen tanks)
• Data on over-the-counter drugs and healthcare-related items
• Data on Medicare spending

Adding More Inputs

• Allowing the user to toggle between chart types
• Allowing the user to have mulitple inputs for drug indications or categories of care
• Allowing users to download charts and/or data tables