Frequently Asked Questions
1. Do I get charged for accessing the Medical SAS Datasets at the
Austin Information Technology Center (AITC)?
The AITC or Austin Information Technology Center (AITC formerly: CFD; formerly: AAC) is a VA Franchise Fund. (See http://www.va.gov/fund/ ) Under formal business agreements, AITC charges the VHA for services related to development, management, and remote processing of enterprise wide corporate databases maintained at the AITC. Since FY2007, VHA facility charges (called “charge backs”) have been centralized by Office of Information and Technology (OI&T) and are not distributed to individual users. Charge back data by facility are still collected and retained for informational purposes.
2. Can the datasets be used on platforms other than the Austin Information Technology Center (AITC formerly: CFD; formerly: AAC)
mainframe?
Yes, the datasets can be copied into a SAS transport file format and then
transferred and used on any platform that SAS runs on.
3. What system platform do the datasets reside on?
IBM mainframe at the AITC (formerly, CFD or AAC).
4. What version of SAS are the datasets currently in?
SAS Software version 8.2.
5. How would the cumulative nature of SAS formats used in the Medical
SAS Datasets affect me?
The AITC (formerly, CFD or AAC)
is responsible for updating the permanent SAS format library associated
with the Medical SAS Dataset variables. If you have downloaded the permanent
SAS format library then it must be regularly updated to reflect any additions
or modifications that the AITC
may have made.
6. What is the new calculation for the Length of Stay (LS) variable? Is there a better way
of computing the length of stay?
The Length of Stay (LS) variable is now calculated utilizing the following variables: (Discharge Date (DISDAY) - Admit Day (ADMITDAY) - (Absent Bed Occupant Days (ABO) + Number of days on pass during entire stay (PASS)). The minimum value
assigned is 1 regardless of whether the stay was overnight or not. That being the case,
users may want to recalculate LS themselves to avoid the automatic assignment of a value
of 1 to any stay where ADMITDAY is equal to DISDAY. With Extended Care and non-VA stay
LS calculations, the Absent Sick In Hospital (ASIH) days variable is subtracted as well.
7. How many disease and procedure codes are coded in the Medical SAS Datasets?
Are all the procedures provided to a patient captured by the ICD-9-CM codes?
The main datasets contain up to to 13 diagnostic code variables (DXPRIME, DXF2-DXF13) per admission. But the complete list of diagnostic codes that
have been assigned to a patient for a particular admission can be retrieved from the
bedsection dataset.
Procedure codes are kept in the Procedure or the Surgery
datasets and all the procedures done on an inpatient basis are captured. There are only
five procedure code fields in these datasets, but since a second or more records can
be created as needed, there is no upper limit in the number of procedures that can be
coded.
Both the diagnostic and procedure codes are in ICD-9-CM
for inpatient services.
For outpatient services, up to 10 diagnostic code variables
(DXLSF, DXF2-DXF10) are recorded for an event in ICD-9-CM format. An event is equivalent
to one clinic stop encounter. Until FY2004, up to 15 procedures (CPT1-CPT15) were recoded
in CPT-4 format for each outpatient event. If the limits of these two categories are
reached, the values are not recorded. The repetition of the same CPT codes were not
allowed and consequently all the populated CPT values were unique. However, FY2005, the Event and Inpatient Encounters files capture up to 20 procedures using CPT codes with repetition of a code allowed. The 60 CPT modifier procedure code variables added FY2006 include up to three unique modifiers for each CPT variable.
8. Where can I find information on how Inpatient (PTF) Files are coded?
VHA Handbook 1907.04 "Patient Treatment File (PTF) Coding Instructions" is a new Handbook (Feb 2008) that provides procedures for completing Patient Treatment File (PTF) Coding, reflecting PTF software changes and updated requirements.
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