Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS)

Jump To Topics Under "VA-Medicare Data For Research"            VA-Medicare Data Initiative Overview      VHA Cohort      How to Request VA-Medicare Data        Request for VA-Medicare Data        Data Use Agreement        Items to be included in a Data Security Plan        Verification of Approval for Real Social Security Numbers.      Available VA-Medicare Datasets        Medicare Data File Documentation        Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS)        United States Renal Data System (USRDS)      Help      FAQs

The Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS) is conducted annually by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).  The MCBS is comprised of two modules: Access to Care and Cost and Use.  Both modules contain information on demographics, self-reported health status, and health insurance. 

Medicare claims are available for all MCBS respondents for the years they completed the survey.  The files available are the Inpatient Standard Analytic File (SAF), Skilled Nursing Facility SAF, Outpatient SAF, Hospice SAF, Home Health Agency SAF, Carrier SAF, and Durable Medical Equipment SAF.

The Access to Care module only contains respondents who were enrolled in Medicare the entire year.  It includes information on beneficiary access to medical care, satisfaction with care, and usual sources of care. It also includes questions on beneficiaries' information needs and the sources used to get information on Medicare. In recent years the survey has added questions regarding Medicare HMOs and discount drug plan membership. The Access to Care module is available approximately one year before the Cost and Use module.  The same respondent can appear in the Access to Care module for up to 4 years.

The Cost and Use module contains all respondents, including those who died during the year.  It provides a comprehensive picture of health services received, amounts paid, and sources of payment.  MCBS has developed a reconciliation process that combines Medicare claims and survey-reported healthcare, which includes services not covered by Medicare, for example prescription drugs and use of long-term care facilities.  Because of the additional work that is required to create the Cost and Use files, it is usually available one year after the Access to Care files for a calendar year.  The same respondent can appear in the Cost and Use module for up to 3 years.

VIReC has obtained MCBS data for all survey participants since 1999.  In addition, VIReC has a crosswalk file that allows linking the individual identifier (MCBS ID) to the real or scrambled SSNs for veterans in the VHA cohort.  The number of survey participants found in the VHA cohort for each year is listed in the table below.

Documentation

MCBS documentation from CMS

MCBS documentation from ResDAC

Analysis of veterans in the MCBS

Below is an example of the type of analysis that can be done using the MCBS data and the MCBS-SSN crosswalk file which identifies veterans known to the VHA.  By merging the crosswalk file to the RIC 1 (Survey Identification) file from the 2001 Access to Care dataset, we are able to identify both veterans known to the VHA and those not known to the VHA.