254844 Capacity of MEPS to Inform Provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Wednesday, October 31, 2012 : 12:30 PM - 12:50 PM

Steven Cohen, PhD , Center for Financing, Access and Cost Trends, AHRQ, Rockville, MD
     
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was enacted with major provisions to expand health insurance coverage, control health care costs, and improve the health care delivery system. In order to effectively plan, operationalize, implement and manage the vast array of programs set in motion by this act, there is critical need for content specific data that is both timely and accessible. Essential data resources will be required to facilitate effective program planning, administration and management, in addition to facilitating evaluations of program performance. While new data development efforts are essential to insure the effective administration of the various components of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), several existing data platforms helped inform the underlying framework of the legislation and will continue to guide its implementation.

AHRQ's Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) is one of the core data resources utilized to inform several provisions of the Affordable Care Act. In this paper, attention will be given to the current capacity of the MEPS to inform program planning, implementation, and evaluations of program performance for several components of the ACA. In addition, attention will be given to planned enhancements to the survey to help achieve related programmatic needs identified by the Department of Health and Human Services. The presentation will also include a discussion of the statistical and methodological strategies adopted in MEPS to improve the accuracy of resultant health insurance coverage and expenditure estimates.

Learning Areas:
Biostatistics, economics
Conduct evaluation related to programs, research, and other areas of practice
Public health or related public policy
Public health or related research

Learning Objectives:
• Participants in the session will acquire information and perspectives regarding the capacity of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) to permit analyses of the U.S. health care system including the impact of the Affordable Care Act on health insurance coverage expansions, health care costs, and health care quality. Participants will be able to identify the statistical and methodological strategies adopted in MEPS to improve the accuracy of resultant health insurance coverage and expenditure estimates. Participants will be able to explain the inter-departmental efforts in the federal sector that have focused on research efforts and planned improvements to national health care data on coverage and cost from the major federal surveys. This will include the development, coordination and implementation of joint research, analytical, methodological and modeling agendas to improve the quality of these critical measures for policy formulation.

Keywords: Healthcare Costs, Health Reform

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I lead AHRQ's administration of surveys and development of large primary data sets, including the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), to support health care policy and behavioral research and analyses. I also direct a staff of approximately 50 highly trained and skilled statisticians, biostatisticians, survey researchers, economists, social scientists, clinicians and support staff conducting health services research.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 5213.0: GeoSpatial Models for Public Health Applications