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Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) Enhancements on Burdens and Economic Impacts of Medical Care

Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) Enhancements on Burdens and Economic Impacts of Medical Care
Agency
  • Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
Start Date
  • 02/01/2024
OS-PCORTF Strategic Plan Alignment
  • Primary: Goal 4. Person-Centeredness, Inclusion, and Equity
  • Secondary: Goal 2.Data Standards and Linkages for Longitudinal Research

 

BACKGROUND

The 2019 reauthorization of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund expanded the scope of outcomes that should be considered in patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) to include the potential burdens and economic impacts of health care utilization. Timely, high-quality data on the direct medical costs (e.g., out of pocket costs), direct non-medical costs (e.g., transportation costs), and indirect costs (e.g., lost wages) associated with medical treatments, items, and services are needed to support a more comprehensive perspective on health outcomes, to identify and address disparities, and to examine economic outcomes. However, limitations in the availability, quality, and suitability of these data make it difficult for researchers to address questions important to patients, caregivers, clinicians, and policymakers.

One important mechanism to address these limitations is to leverage well-established data infrastructure, such as the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS). The MEPS, which is sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), is a nationally representative, longitudinal survey of the civilian noninstitutionalized population that collects detailed information on health care access and utilization, spending, health conditions and health status, and other social and demographic information. Enhancing the systematic collection of data in MEPS by (1) adding new domains related to economic burdens of seeking and receiving health care and/or (2) improving the granularity and comprehensiveness of information collected in existing domains will support the generation of evidence needed to inform decision making and improve health outcomes.

PURPOSE

This project will build and strengthen data infrastructure to study economic outcomes in patient-centered outcomes research by:

  • Developing and fielding a new self-administered questionnaire (SAQ) on burdens and economic impacts of medical care as part of the MEPS (Spring 2025) with an emphasis on indirect costs of care.
  • Producing public and restricted use files that include additional data as part of the MEPS 2024 files; the restricted use files can be linked with data from the AHRQ Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) database, which was developed as part of another OS-PCORTF project.
  • Disseminating resources to support the use of the enhanced MEPS data for PCOR studies, including a report, statistical brief, and data workshop.

KEY IMPACTS

Providing more relevant, comprehensive data for PCOR studies
The additional data on the burdens and economic impacts of medical care collected through the new SAQ will augment existing MEPS data, enabling researchers to better examine health care economic impacts and equity in health care access, utilization, and outcomes.

Reducing barriers to data access and use
The availability of accessible, standardized, and linkable data as well as supporting resources will improve the efficiency with which PCOR studies can be designed and conducted to address questions important to patients, caregivers, clinicians, and policymakers.