Medicare HOS Research Data Files
Several types of Medicare HOS data files are available for research purposes. Medicare
HOS data files are available as public use files (PUFs), limited data sets (LDSs),
and research identifiable files (RIFs).
HOS PUFs contain the majority of the survey items collected on the HOS instrument
(excluding beneficiary identifying information) as well as selected additional administrative
variables. HOS PUFs are constructed to prevent the identification of any single
beneficiary or Medicare Advantage Organization (MAO) and only respondents to the
survey are included in the files. HOS PUFs are available at no cost and can be downloaded
directly from this page (see below for additional information).
Medicare HOS Public Use Data Files
In order to facilitate the dissemination of data collected by the Medicare HOS project
for additional research, PUFs have been created for each cohort of data. The files
have been constructed in accordance with current CMS and Department of Health and
Human Services (HHS) policies and other applicable statutes and laws. All identifying
information has been excluded from the files, and demographic categories have been
aggregated such that identification of any given individual is not possible.
Three distinct categories of PUFs have been generated:
- Baseline PUFs contain the data collected during a given baseline
survey administration.
- Follow Up PUFs contain the data collected during the follow up
survey administration which occurs two years after the baseline survey administration.
- Analytic PUFs contain the merged baseline and follow up files as
well as supplemental variables.
The PUFs are formatted as fixed-width ASCII (flat) files. The PUF ASCII files are
bundled together (as a ZIP file) with additional documentation that details the
construction and content of each PUF. SAS
® code is available that
can be used to import the Analytic PUFs and create SAS
® data sets.
Each import program creates a cohort specific SAS
® data set containing
field names and labels. The link to download the SAS
® program is
listed under the Analytic Data Import Code column in the PUF Data Files table.
The HOS PUF Data User's Guides are presented in the section entitled
Data User's Guides. These Data User's Guides
present detailed documentation regarding file construction and contents for all
data sets distributed by this program. If you have any questions regarding the PUFs,
please feel free to contact the
Medicare HOS Information and Technical Support Line.
PUF Data Files
|
HOS COHORT
|
BASELINE DATA
|
FOLLOW UP DATA
|
ANALYTIC DATA
|
ANALYTIC DATA
IMPORT CODE
|
|
COHORT 1
|
1998
ZIP, 5.8 MB
|
2000
ZIP, 2.7 MB
|
1998 - 2000
ZIP, 6.8 MB
|
SAS, 19 KB
|
|
COHORT 2
|
1999
ZIP, 6.8 MB
|
2001
ZIP, 2.6 MB
|
1999-2001
ZIP, 7.0 MB
|
SAS, 24 KB
|
|
COHORT 3
|
2000
ZIP, 7.0 MB
|
2002
ZIP, 2.5 MB
|
2000-2002
ZIP, 6.9 MB
|
SAS, 18 KB
|
|
COHORT 4
|
2001
ZIP, 4.3 MB
|
2003
ZIP, 2.3 MB
|
2001-2003
ZIP, 5.9 MB
|
SAS, 23 KB
|
|
COHORT 5
|
2002
ZIP, 3.9 MB
|
2004
ZIP, 2.1 MB
|
2002-2004
ZIP, 5.5 MB
|
SAS, 23 KB
|
|
COHORT 6
|
2003
ZIP, 4.0 MB
|
N/A*
|
2003-2005
ZIP, 5.3 MB
|
SAS, 23 KB
|
|
COHORT 7
|
2004
ZIP, 3.5 MB
|
N/A*
|
2004-2006
ZIP, 4.3 MB
|
SAS, 29 KB
|
|
COHORT 8
|
2005
ZIP, 3.5 MB
|
N/A*
|
2005-2007
ZIP, 4.4 MB
|
SAS, 29 KB
|
|
COHORT 9
|
2006
ZIP, 2.9 MB
|
N/A*
|
2006-2008
ZIP, 4.2 MB
|
SAS, 33 KB
|
|
COHORT 10
|
2007
ZIP, 4.7 MB
|
N/A*
|
2007-2009
ZIP, 6.8 MB
|
SAS, 33 KB
|
|
COHORT 11
|
2008
ZIP, 5.8 MB
|
N/A*
|
2008-2010
ZIP, 7.9 MB
|
SAS, 33 KB
|
|
COHORT 12
|
2009
ZIP, 7.2 MB
|
N/A*
|
2009-2011
ZIP, 9.6 MB
|
SAS, 33 KB
|
|
COHORT 13
|
2010
ZIP, 8.4 MB
|
N/A*
|
2010-2012
Fall 2013
|
SAS
Fall 2013
|
|
COHORT 14
|
2011
ZIP, 7.7 MB
|
N/A*
|
2011-2013
Fall 2014
|
SAS
Fall 2014
|
*Beginning with
Cohort 6, the PUF
Follow Up data file is not being
produced. The
Follow Up sample is included in the PUF
Analytic
data file.
PUF Data Files in Multiple Formats
PUF data files are also available for download from the Inter-University Consortium
for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) website. ICPSR is a unit within the Institute
for Social Research at the University of Michigan and is an international consortium
of academic institutions and research organizations that maintains a data archive
of research files in the social sciences. Users may download PUFs created in SAS,
SPSS, Stata, and tab separated values (TSV) formats from the
ICPSR website. The
1998-2007 HOS Cohorts
1-10 Baseline, the
2000-2004 Cohorts 1-5 Follow Up, and the
1998-2000
Cohort 1 Analytic through
2005-2007 Cohort 8 Analytic PUFs
are available for download at no cost. A login account and online Terms of Use Agreement
are required to download the files from ICPSR.
Medicare HOS Limited Data Sets and Research Identifiable Files
HOS LDSs and RIFs are comprised of the entire national sample for a given cohort
(including both respondents and non-respondents), and contain all of the HOS survey
items. The HOS LDSs include plan identifiers as well as several additional variables
describing plan characteristics. They also contain protected beneficiary-level health
information such as date of birth; however, specific direct person identifiers (i.e.
name and health insurance claim number) are not included in LDSs.
The Cohort 1-6 LDS File Specifications (PDF, 1.4 MB) document details
the characteristics of the merged baseline and follow up LDS for each available
cohort of data that used the HOS 1.0 version of the survey at each administration.
The Cohort 7-8 LDS File Specifications (PDF, 752 KB) document details
the characteristics of the merged baseline and follow up LDS for two cohorts of
data that used the HOS 1.0 version of the survey at the baseline administration
and the HOS 2.0 at the follow up administration. The Cohort 9-12 LDS File Specifications (PDF, 841 KB) document
details the characteristics of the merged baseline and follow up LDS for the available
cohorts of data that used the HOS 2.0 version of the survey at each administration.
The documentation describes the field name/description, field type, field length,
additional information (including valid values), and indication of field inclusion
or exclusion for the fields in each cohort file.
The RIFs contain all of the variables in an LDS as well as specific direct person
identifiers (i.e. name and health insurance claim number) that are not included
in an LDS file. A signed Data Use Agreement with CMS is required to obtain either
LDS or RIF data files. The Research Data Assistance Center (ResDAC) at the University of Minnesota
is a CMS contractor that provides assistance to academic, government and non-profit
researchers interested in using Medicare and/or Medicaid data. ResDAC is available
to assist in the completion and/or review of data requisition forms for Medicare
HOS research data files prior to their submission to CMS. For additional information
and assistance with obtaining Medicare HOS LDS and RIF files, please visit the ResDAC Web page and select the Health Outcomes Survey within the Data Availability Table link.
ResDAC may also be contacted by calling 1-888-9RESDAC (1-888-973-7322) between the
hours of 8am to 4:30pm CST Monday through Friday or by e-mailing resdac@umn.edu.
National Cancer Institute (NCI) SEER - MHOS Linked Data Set
The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) and the Medicare Health Outcomes
Survey (MHOS) linked data sets are available. The linked data set is a surveillance
data set that links data on cancer patients to patient-reported outcome measures
and provides researchers with the potential to investigate the health status and
health related quality of life of older adults enrolled in Medicare Advantage Organizations
with and without a cancer diagnosis. The SEER-MHOS linked data sets available now
include data collected during the years of 1998-2007. The HOS data are from baseline
and follow up surveys for Cohorts 1-8 collected during the same time
period. For researchers who are interested in using this linked data in their investigations,
please go to the NCI SEER-MHOS web page for information.