This public use file is one in a series of event-level public use files drawn from the 2005 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) Household Component (HC). Released as an ASCII file with SAS, SPSS, and STATA programming statements and in SAS transport format, the Emergency Room Visits File provides detailed information on emergency room visits. Data are gathered from a nationally representative sample of the civilian, noninstitutionalized population of the United States and can be used to make estimates of emergency room utilization and expenditures for calendar year 2005. Each record represents one, household-reported, emergency room visit reported during the 2005 portion of round 3 and rounds 4 and 5 for Panel 9, as well as rounds 1, 2, and the 2005 portion of round 3 for Panel 10 of the survey (i.e., the rounds for the MEPS panels covering calendar year 2005). The Emergency Room Visits Public Use Data File contains characteristics associated with the emergency room visit, such as, the date of the visit, types of care and services received, types of medicine prescribed during the visit, condition codes, expenditures and source of payment associated with the visit, and imputed expenditure variables.
*The PDF version of the codebook is recommended for printing; the HTML version is database driven and lets you navigate quickly to details on each variable.
**Right-click on the data file link, then select Save Target As or Save Link As to download the file.