Title: Medical Expenditure Panel Survey
1Medical Expenditure Panel Survey
2MEPS History
- 1977 National Medical Care Expenditure Survey
- 1987 National Medical Expenditure Survey
- 1996 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey
3MEPS Survey Components
- The MEPS has two major components
- MEPS-HC -- Household Component
- MEPS-IC -- Insurance Component
4MEPS-HC Purpose Uses
- Estimates annual health care use, expenditures
and insurance coverage, and tracks changes in
these over time - Provides estimates of expenditures and sources of
payment by selected demographic variables - Used for policy-related and behavioral research
on the determinants of health care use, spending,
and insurance coverage - Used in micro simulation models to analyze
alternative health care delivery proposals.
5MEPS-HC Survey Design
- Sub-sample of respondents from the previous
years NHIS - Representative of the civilian non-institutionaliz
ed population of the US - Five in-person interviews over 2 ½ year period
using CAPI. - Interviews average 90 minutes with a range of one
to four hours
6MEPS-HC Survey Design -- Oversampling
- Oversampling improves the precision of estimates
for specific subgroups - Blacks and Hispanics have been oversampled every
year with an additional over sampling of blacks
in 2004 - Low income and Asians oversampled in 2002 and
beyond
7MEPS-HC Sample Sizes
- Year Families Persons
- 1996 8,655 21,571
- 1997 13,087
32,636 - 1998 9,023
22,953 - 1999 9,354
23,565 - 2000 9,515
23,839 - 2001 12,852
32,122 - 2002 14,828
37,418 - 2003 12,860
32,681 - 2004 13,018
32,737 - 2005 12,810
32,320
8MEPS Panel Design Data Reference Periods
N is equal to the number of people with a
positive person weight on the file.
9MEPS-HC Core Interview Content
- Demographics
- Charges and Payments
- Health Status
- Conditions
- Utilization
- Employment
- Health Insurance
10MEPS- HC Supplemental CAPI Sections
- Sections asked in rounds 2 and 4
- Access to care
- Child preventive health
- Satisfaction with health plans providers
- Sections asked in rounds 3 and 5
- Assets (round 5 only)
- Income
- Preventive Care
- Priority conditions
11MEPS-HC Supplemental Paper Questionnaires
- Diabetes Care SAQ
- Given once a year to each person identified as
having diabetes - Includes questions about diabetes related tests
and managing diabetes - Adult SAQ
- Given once a year to each adult 18 years old and
older - Focus is on information that needs to be self
reported such as self assessments,
height/weight, opinions about health care issues
and quality of care measures
12Types of MEPS-HC Files
- Full-year Files - calendar year data
- Point-in-time Files - snap shot first part of
year - MEPS/NHIS Link File
- Longitudinal Data File
- MEPS HC-036 1996-2005 Pooled Estimation File
13Levels of MEPS-HC Public Use Files
- Person Level - detailed person information
- Event Level - detailed event level information
- Condition Level - detailed condition information
- Job Level - detailed job information
14MEPS-HC Caveats and Limitations
- Sample size limitations preclude some analyses
- Typically, one respondent provides data for the
entire household - Household respondents may not be able to report
accurately certain types of information - type of health plan
- detailed event information
- diagnoses
15MEPS-IC (Insurance Component)
- An independent survey of employers and unions not
linked to the household survey - The sample contains information from about 45,000
establishments and supports national and
state-level estimates for all 50 states. - Employer-sponsored health insurance measures
- Availability
- Enrollment
- Benefit and payment provisions
- Cost
16(No Transcript)
17MEPS Publications
- Statistical Briefs Easy-to-read, concise
graphical summaries of MEPS data - Research Findings and Highlights Tables and
summaries of descriptive statistics - Methodology Reports Detailed information on MEPS
sample design and survey methods - Chartbooks Policy-sensitive topics in an
accessible question-and-answer format - Working Papers Preliminary analyses of
methodological and technical issues by AHRQ staff
- Research in Action Analyses using research
results from AHRQ-sponsored studies, including
MEPS data
18AHRQ Data Center (ADC)
- Provides researchers access to non-public use
MEPS data (except directly identifiable
information) - Mode of data analysis
- on secure LAN at AHRQ
- task order agreement with data contractor
- combinations of both
19Examples of Confidential Data Available for ADC
Projects
- Linked MEPS-HC and Secondary Data
- Full geo-coding for 1996, 1997 and 2000-2005.
FIPS codes for other years - Fully specified industry/occupation and condition
codes - Selected State and MSA identifiers and estimation
variables - 30 largest states and 10 largest MSAs