Why does some State Drug Utilization Data (SDUD) have an asterisk?

As CMS is obligated by the Federal Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. Section 552a and the HIPAA Privacy Rule, 45 C.F.R Parts 160 and 164, to protect the privacy of individual beneficiaries and other persons, all direct identifiers have been removed and data that are less than eleven (11) counts are suppressed. An asterisk (*) notes suppressed data. CMS applies counter or secondary suppression in cases where only one prescription is suppressed for primary reasons, e.g. one prescription in a state. Also, if one sub-group (e.g. number of prescription) is suppressed, then the other sub-group is suppressed.

See Also:

• What fields changed when CMS moved the State Drug Utilization Data (SDUD) to data.medicaid.gov?
• What are the data field descriptions for the State Drug Utilization Data (SDUD)?
• Is the redacted State Drug Utilization Data (SDUD) available to the public?