Risk adjustment and observation time: comparison between cross-sectional and 2-year panel data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS)

BACKGROUND: Risk adjustment models were used to estimate health care consumption after adjusting for individual characteristics or other factors. The results of this technique were not satisfying. One reason could be that the length of time to document consumption might be associated with the mean a...

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Autores principales: Chao, Yi-Sheng, Wu, Chao-Jung, Chen, Tai-Shen
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4340859/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25825669
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2047-2501-2-5
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author Chao, Yi-Sheng
Wu, Chao-Jung
Chen, Tai-Shen
author_facet Chao, Yi-Sheng
Wu, Chao-Jung
Chen, Tai-Shen
author_sort Chao, Yi-Sheng
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Risk adjustment models were used to estimate health care consumption after adjusting for individual characteristics or other factors. The results of this technique were not satisfying. One reason could be that the length of time to document consumption might be associated with the mean and variance of observed health care consumption. This study aims to use a simplified mathematical model and real-world data to explore the relationship of observation time (one or two years) and predictability. METHODS: This study used cross-sectional (one-year) and 2-year panel data sets of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) from 1996 to 2008. Comparisons of the health care consumption (total health expenditure, emergency room (ER) and office-based visits) included ratios of means and standard errors (SEs). Risk adjustment models for one- and two-year data used generalized linear model. RESULTS: The ratios of mean health care consumption (two-year to one-year total expenditure, ER and office-based visits) seemed to be two in most age groups and the ratios of SEs varied around or above two. The R-squared of two-year models seemed to be slightly better than that of one-year models. CONCLUSIONS: We find health expenditure and ER or office-based visits observed in two consecutive years were about twice those observed in a single year for most age, similar to the ratios predicted in mathematical examples. The ratios of mean spending and visits varied across age groups. The other finding is that the predictability of two-year consumption seems better than that of one-year slightly. The reason is not clear and we will continue studying this phenomenon. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/2047-2501-2-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-43408592015-03-30 Risk adjustment and observation time: comparison between cross-sectional and 2-year panel data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) Chao, Yi-Sheng Wu, Chao-Jung Chen, Tai-Shen Health Inf Sci Syst Research BACKGROUND: Risk adjustment models were used to estimate health care consumption after adjusting for individual characteristics or other factors. The results of this technique were not satisfying. One reason could be that the length of time to document consumption might be associated with the mean and variance of observed health care consumption. This study aims to use a simplified mathematical model and real-world data to explore the relationship of observation time (one or two years) and predictability. METHODS: This study used cross-sectional (one-year) and 2-year panel data sets of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) from 1996 to 2008. Comparisons of the health care consumption (total health expenditure, emergency room (ER) and office-based visits) included ratios of means and standard errors (SEs). Risk adjustment models for one- and two-year data used generalized linear model. RESULTS: The ratios of mean health care consumption (two-year to one-year total expenditure, ER and office-based visits) seemed to be two in most age groups and the ratios of SEs varied around or above two. The R-squared of two-year models seemed to be slightly better than that of one-year models. CONCLUSIONS: We find health expenditure and ER or office-based visits observed in two consecutive years were about twice those observed in a single year for most age, similar to the ratios predicted in mathematical examples. The ratios of mean spending and visits varied across age groups. The other finding is that the predictability of two-year consumption seems better than that of one-year slightly. The reason is not clear and we will continue studying this phenomenon. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/2047-2501-2-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2014-07-25 /pmc/articles/PMC4340859/ /pubmed/25825669 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2047-2501-2-5 Text en © Chao et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014 This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
Chao, Yi-Sheng
Wu, Chao-Jung
Chen, Tai-Shen
Risk adjustment and observation time: comparison between cross-sectional and 2-year panel data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS)
title Risk adjustment and observation time: comparison between cross-sectional and 2-year panel data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS)
title_full Risk adjustment and observation time: comparison between cross-sectional and 2-year panel data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS)
title_fullStr Risk adjustment and observation time: comparison between cross-sectional and 2-year panel data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS)
title_full_unstemmed Risk adjustment and observation time: comparison between cross-sectional and 2-year panel data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS)
title_short Risk adjustment and observation time: comparison between cross-sectional and 2-year panel data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS)
title_sort risk adjustment and observation time: comparison between cross-sectional and 2-year panel data from the medical expenditure panel survey (meps)
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4340859/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25825669
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2047-2501-2-5
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