The Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS) is a continuous, multipurpose survey conducted by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The MCBS sample of 16,000 represents the national Medicare population. The central goals of MCBS are to determine expenditures and sources of payment for all services used by Medicare beneficiaries, including co-payments, deductibles, and noncovered services; to ascertain all types of health insurance coverage and relate coverage to sources of payment; and to trace processes over time, such as changes in health status, spending down to Medicaid eligibility, and the impacts of program changes.
The newly released 2005 Access to Care file contains summaries of use and expenditures for the calendar year from Medicare files, along with survey data on insurance coverage, health status and functioning, preventive services, medical conditions, access to care, Medicare knowledge and access to information, satisfaction with care, living arrangements, and income. Cross-sectional and longitudinal weights are included, as well as variables needed to calculate standard errors. This release will be followed in late 2007 by an additional file that includes reconciled medical event, charge, and payment information.
The file can be obtained through a Data Use Agreement with CMS. Further information is available from the MCBS web site, http://www.cms.hhs.gov/mcbs -- or by calling William Long at (410) 786-2927.
