A NHANES-CMS Medicaid Feasibility Study file has been created for the Continuous NHANES data in two year survey intervals, beginning with 1999-2000. There is one feasibility file for each two-year Continuous NHANES data set. The range of years of NHANES to which Medicaid records were linked is described in Course 2, Module 3, Task 2 “NHANES-CMS Linked Data Years of Availability”. Each feasibility file has the same structure and number of variables. The link to the feasibility file codebook that lists all variables for the file is located in the Resources section.
Each file contains a match status variable, CMS_MEDICAID_MATCH, to indicate whether linkage of the NHANES respondent to CMS Medicaid records was possible based on linkage eligibility, and if so, whether the respondent was successfully matched to the CMS Medicaid Analytic eXtract (MAX) File for at least one year of the linkage interval.
| Values | CMS Linkage Status |
|---|---|
1 |
ELIGIBLE & LINKED TO ONE OR MORE CMS MEDICAID ANALYTIC EXTRACT (MAX) FILE |
2 |
ELIGIBLE & NOT LINKED TO A CMS MAX FILE |
3 |
INELIGIBLE FOR CMS LINKAGE |
For the remainder of this tutorial, the term “eligible for linkage” will refer to those individuals represented by both values “1” and “2. “Ineligible for linkage” will refer to individuals represented by value “3”.
Each file also includes variables to indicate if a survey respondent has a linked data record for each of the five CMS Medicaid administrative record files (Person Summary, Inpatient Hospital, Long Term Care, Other Services, Prescription Drug) and for each year of Medicaid benefit coverage.
Possible values for this indicator are:
| Value | Description |
|---|---|
0 |
RESPONDENT HAS NO DATA ON THE CMS FILE |
1 |
RESPONDENT HAS DATA ON THE CMS FILE |
MISSING or BLANK |
NOT MATCHED OR INELIGIBLE FOR LINKAGE |
InformationThe feasibility study files do not contain any specific information about CMS Medicaid benefits or reasons for medical care utilization, only whether at least one claim was found for that respondent in each claim type-year combination.
The NHANES feasibility files are located under Data Linkage in the Data Access section of the NCHS website. They are ASCII DAT files that can be freely downloaded.
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