Benchmarking Medicare Managed Care Plan Enrollment Estimates from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey and Administrative Enrollment Files from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid

摘要

For many Medicare policy research studies and analyses, such as those comparing patient outcomes by type of heath care delivery system, it is useful to distinguish between outcomes for beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare managed care plans and those with fee-for-service coverage. This working paper benchmarks estimates of Medicare managed care from the Medicare Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) and administrative data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for 1996 through 2005. Estimates of Medicare managed care enrollment from round 1 of the MEPS for 1996 - 1997 and 2000 - 2005 benchmark reasonably well with those from administrative data from CMS. In addition, estimated distributions of Medicare managed care enrollees by age, sex, self-reported health status, and race/ethnicity from MEPS benchmark well to those from the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey.