Scope of the Survey, 1996

The sampling frame for the 1996 National Home and Hospice Care Survey (NHHCS) consisted of 16,700 agencies classified as agencies providing home health and hospice care. These agencies were identified through the 1991 National Health Provider Inventory (NHPI), updated to 1996 using the Agency Reporting System. The NHPI is a comprehensive census of nursing and related care homes, residential care homes, home health care agencies, and hospices. It is conducted periodically by NCHS. The sample consisted of 1,200 agencies selected from this universe.

Only agencies providing home health or hospice care services at the time of the survey were eligible to participate in the 1996 NHHCS. Of the 1,200 agencies in the sample, 1,091 were considered in scope of the survey.  Of the 109 out-of-scope agencies, 89 were not providing home health or hospice care services at the time of the survey and 20 were duplicates or had merged with other sampled agencies. Of the in-scope agencies, 1,053 (97 percent) agreed to participate in the 1996 NHHCS, 34 refused to participate, and 3 could not be located.