Integrating Administrative Data With Survey-Collected Data to Reduce Burden in Establishment Data Collection
Rachel Carnahan
NORC at the University of Chicago
Felicia LeClere
NORC at the University of Chicago
Andrea Mayfield
NORC at the University of Chicago
The Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS) is a longitudinal survey of a nationally representative sample of the Medicare population, conducted by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) through a contract with NORC at the University of Chicago. The MCBS collects detailed data about community- and facility-dwelling Medicare beneficiaries, including health care use, expenditures, and health status. Facility data are collected via in-person interviews with facility staff in both Medicare-certified facilities and other types of facility settings. The current Facility data collection approach is unnecessarily burdensome to facility staff because it includes certain items that are already reported to CMS for Medicare-certified facilities through the Long-Term Care Minimum Data Set (MDS) and the Certification and Survey Provider Enhanced Reports (CASPER) process. This paper examines the feasibility of reducing respondent burden by incorporating data from the appropriate MDS and CASPER administrative records in lieu of interview data for a sub-set of overlapping items for those beneficiaries who are located in Medicare-certified facilities.