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Medicare Data File Documentation
 

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Documentation

File Name
CMS/ResDAC Description
CMS Codebook

ResDAC Variable List
 Denominator
 Vital Status
 
 Group Health Plan
 
 MedPAR
 Inpatient SAF
 Skilled Nursing Facility SAF
 Home Health Agency SAF
 Hospice SAF
 Outpatient SAF
 Carrier SAF
 Durable Medical Equipment SAF
 Provider of Services
 
 Unique Physician Identification Number

PDF
 

Years Available and SAS® Proc Contents

 Denominator - VHA Cohort
 Denominator - All Medicare Beneficiaries    
 Vital Status
 Group Health Plan    
 
 
 
  
 MedPAR
 Inpatient SAF    
 Skilled Nursing Facility SAF
 Outpatient SAF
 Hospice SAF
 Home Health Agency SAF
 Carrier SAF
 Durable Medical Equipment SAF
 Provider of Services    
 Unique Physician Identification Number        

 

Summary Data

VIReC provides researchers with summary variable information for selected Medicare datasets.

  • The Min-Max table includes all variables in a dataset.  For each variable, the percent of missing values, the minimum value, and the maximum value are provided.
  • The Frequencies table includes most discrete variables and dates.  Proc Freq in SAS was used to provide counts and percentages.

Links to variable descriptions can be found at the top of this page.  Results are shown in Excel files to allow comparisons across years.

Vital Status - In this file, there is one record for each person from the VHA finder file who has EVER been enrolled in Medicare.

Denominator file - In this file, there is one record for each person who was enrolled in Medicare in a given year.  Some variables, such as the Entitlement/Buy-in Indicators and HMO Indicators are found in the file 12 times, once for each month.  For example, HMOIND01 is January, HMOIND02 is February, etc. 

MedPAR - In this file, there is one record for each stay in an inpatient or skilled nursing facility.  One individual may have multiple records.  Among people who had at least one stay, the mean number of stays per person per year is approximately 2.