The Potential Use of Health Care Financing Administration Data Sets for Health Care Services Research

Administrative Record Systems may be an overlooked source of data for health services researchers. Through its administration of the Medicare and Medicaid Programs, the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) routinely receives data on items such as its beneficiary population, providers certified to deliver care to its beneficiary population, providers certified to deliver care to the beneficiaries, the use of services and reimbursements to providers. This article introduces the reader to the HCFA data, it describes the most important data bases that are useful for research, their relative strengths and weaknesses and the extent to which they are available to outside users.