SEER-Medicare: Provider Files

As part of SEER-Medicare analyses, researchers may want to include information about physicians or hospitals providing care to patients. Information about physicians can be obtained from data collected by the American Medical Association. See Variables Restricted from Routine Release & Encrypted Variables for more information.

For hospital characteristics, NCI has created a Hospital File that includes information about hospitals that are part of the SEER-Medicare data. Information about these hospitals has been obtained from several sources. Each year, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) requires hospitals that bill to the Medicare and Medicaid program to submit an annual report, the Healthcare Cost Report (HCRIS). In addition, as part of its certification process CMS periodically requires institutions to complete the Provider of Service (POS) survey. NCI has extracted selected variables from the HCRIS and POS files from 1996, 1998, and 2000-2003 to be included in the Hospital File. It should be noted that there are differences between the HCRIS and POS files as to exact time periods and how selected variables are defined. NCI has not attempted to resolve any inconsistencies between files, but is making researchers aware of these differences. Close examination of the data may be needed. In addition to information from CMS, the Hospital File includes information about whether the institution was an NCI designated cancer center as of 2002. There are also variables denoting if the hospital participated in any of NCI-sponsored cooperative group trials.

The Hospital file will be made available without charge to investigators. Investigators must include a description of the use of the hospital file in their proposal requesting SEER-Medicare data.

Hospital File Documentation is available in a PDF file.