Affiliations: [a] Center for Cost and Financing Studies, Agency for
Health Care Policy and Research, 2101 E. Jefferson St., Suite 500, Rockville, MD
20852, USA Tel.: +1 301 594 1406, ext. 1486; Fax: +1 301 594 2166
Abstract: The National Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) has been established to
provide an assessment of the health care utilization, expenditures, health
insurance coverage, and sources of payment for the civilian noninstitutionalized
population. The 1996 MEPS sample consists of approximately 10,500 nationally
representative households that were survey participants in the 1995 National
Health Interview Survey (NHIS). In the design of the survey, it was recognized
that the household respondent was not always the best source of information on
medical expenditures, particularly with the growth of managed care.
Consequently, the MEPS includes a Medical Provider Survey Component (MPC), to
improve the accuracy of the national estimates of health care expenditures that
are derived from the survey. The sample design selectively targets those
individuals that are most likely to misreport or not possess adequate knowledge
about their medical expenditures, in addition to medical events that were
expected to be associated with high levels of missing or poor quality data. In
addition, the design was specified to enrich the sample of health care events
available as donors for imputation, and to support methodological analysis. This
paper provides a summary of the analytical objectives of the MPC, in addition to
a detailed discussion of the survey design that was implemented.
Keywords: MEPS, medical expenditures, medical providers, validation study
