Approximation of Variable Costs for the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey

• Activity Number: 66
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 12, 2002 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Survey Research Methods*
• Author(s): Iris Shimizu*+ and Feng Lan
• Affiliation(s): National Center for Health Statistics and National Center for Health Statistics
• Keywords: survey research ; sample design ; cost model

Abstract

The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) conducts the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS) to produce ambulatory medical care service information about patient visits to the emergency and outpatient departments of noninstitutional general and short-stay hospitals, exclusive of Federal hospitals, located in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The current NHAMCS uses a four-stage probability design with samples of geographic areas, hospitals, clinics, and emergency service areas, and patient visits selected at the respective sampling stages. The U.S. Bureau of the Census is the primary data collector for the NHAMCS. There are plans to replace the current sample in 2005. The NCHS is conducting research to optimize the new sample. That research requires information about the variable survey costs--that is, costs which increase with sample size at each sampling stage. This paper discusses the data and processes used to approximate annual variable costs for the 1999 NHAMCS for use in the NHAMCS sample design research.