The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) sponsor the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS). MEPS began in 1996 and asked a nationally representative sample of U.S. civilians about health care use, medical costs, and insurance coverage. MEPS data can assist researchers in examining national changes in medical insurance coverage and in health care delivery, and in evaluating national health care policy.

MEPS consists of four component surveys: Household, Medical Provider, Insurance, and Nursing Home. The Household component serves as the central survey on which the Medical Provider and Insurance components are based. MEPS links individual and household level demographic, health status, employment and income data to information such as health care use, costs, payments for medical services, and health insurance coverage through these four components.

For more information on MEPS, see the following:

NORC's Role in MEPS
Four Key Components
Research Questions that MEPS Data Can Help Answer
Comparability with Other Studies
MEPS Data Availability
Publications

NORC's Role in MEPS

NORC conducts MEPS for AHRQ and NCHS under a subcontract with Westat, Inc. NORC participates in many facets of the study. NORC's responsibilities include completion of nearly two-thirds of the data collection for the Household survey and all data collection for the Medical Provider survey. NORC also designed the training for the Household and Medical Provider components.

Four Key Components

Household

Conducted in 1996, the Household survey captures information at the individual and household levels on demographic characteristics, health status, access to and usage of medical care, medical costs and payments, health insurance coverage, satisfaction with medical care and with health insurance coverage, and the income and employment status of respondents.

The nationally representative sample for the Household survey consists of approximately 10,500 households. This component uses an overlapping survey panel design in which data is collected over two and a half years in a series of five rounds of interviewing. The Household survey collects data through computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI).

Medical Provider

Respondents identified their medical care providers in the Household component of MEPS. The Medical Provider survey asks health care providers to supplement and confirm the medical care information provided by the Household survey respondents. This component consists of a sample of approximately 22,000 health care providers. Data was collected through paper and pencil instrumentation using telephone interviews and a self-administered questionnaire.

Insurance

Similar to the Medical Provider Component, Household survey respondents also identified their health care insurers. The Insurance survey supplements and corroborates insurance coverage information provided by participants in the Household survey. The Insurance component collects information on insurance plans made available by private health insurance providers such as employers or unions. The sample for the Insurance survey consists of approximately 10,000 employers, insurers, and unions. The data collection method for the Insurance component is computer assisted telephone interviewing (CATI).

Nursing Home

The Nursing Home survey gathers data on the health status of the elderly, their long-term medical care, and the health care costs incurred by them and their families. This component also collects information on how nursing homes are organized, the medical services they offer to their residents, the costs for nursing home care, and who pays these costs for nursing home residents.

Research Questions that MEPS Can Help Answer

MEPS collects a wealth of information for analyzing health insurance coverage, medical use, and health costs at the national level, but MEPS does not provide data on health care usage and costs at the state and local level, on the costs and frequency of any specific medical treatments, nor can MEPS provide estimates of mortality or morbidity in the U.S.

A detailed list of questions that MEPS data can help answer is available from AHRQ. MEPS data can assist the investigation of many topics, including:

Health care use, costs and insurance coverage among various policy relevant U.S. population groups like the elderly, the poor, racial minorities, veterans, and children

The selection of different kinds of private insurance coverage

The relationship among insurance coverage, employment status and the use of medical services

The costs to provide health insurance to employees by various types of employers and by Census region (Northeast, Midwest, South, and West)

Employer expenditures to provide health insurance to employees

Comparability with Other Studies for AHRQ

MEPS is associated with the National Medical Expenditure Survey (NMES). NMES-1, conducted in 1977, was followed by a second survey (NMES-2) in 1987. MEPS is the most recent project in this series of studies.

Taken together, NMES and MEPS may provide trend data on many aspects health care use, costs, and how Americans pay for their medical services. MEPS, however, offers more current and comprehensive data through its overlapping-panel design and its links among the four main component surveys. MEPS also is distinct from NMES in sample selection. The MEPS sample consists of a subsample of respondents who participated in the 1995 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). This sample design enables MEPS Household data to be linked to some items in the NHIS survey. NMES-1 and NMES-2, however, are stand alone surveys that selected their respondents from a screening process.

MEPS Data Products and Availability

Data products are available from the MEPS publications list or from the National Technical Information Service (NTIS).

For more current MEPS data product releases check the MEPS new data and data update lists.

Publications

A list of MEPS publications is avaialable on the MEPS website. These include methodology reports, research findings, research highlights and chartbooks. The publications list also includes selected journal articles that use MEPS data. Summaries of many MEPS-related publications by AHRQ are available from NTIS by searching under "MEPS".

Electronic publications are available on a limited basis through the CCFS Data Center.

Printed publications may be obtained through the MEPS site. Many of these publications may also be consulted in the NORC Library: check holdings through the Library's web catalog.