Description:
In MEPS, hospital care information are collected for each type of hospital setting (emergency room, inpatient, and outpatient department). Emergency Room (ER) visits/use/events include any visit made during the person's reference period to a hospital emergency room. MEPS collects information on the health conditions requiring emergency room care, medical services provided, any surgical procedures performed, prescribed medicines, and the physicians and surgeons providing emergency room care. ER expenditures in MEPS are defined as the sum of payments for care received for each emergency room visit, including out-of-pocket payments and payments made by private insurance, Medicaid, Medicare and other sources. ER expenditures include expenses for emergency room visits whether or not they resulted in hospital admissions. ER Expenditure data may be broken out by facility and
separately billing doctor expenditures. Emergency Room Visits Files are available as part of the
event-level files. Information summarized to the person-level is available on the full-year consolidated files under the
Household Full Year Files.