AHRQ Medical Expenditures Panel Survey (MEPS)
Investment ID: 009-000001424
Overview
Program Title
AHRQ Medical Expenditures Panel Survey (MEPS)
Description
MEPS is the major federal data source for high quality data used for estimates of health care use, expenditures and sources of payment for medical care. It collects data on the health services that Americans use and on private health insurance.
Type of Program
Major IT Investments
Multi-Agency Category
Not Applicable
Associated Websites
http://meps.ahrq.gov/mepsweb/, http://meps.ahrq.gov/mepsweb/data_stats/onsite_datacenter.jsp, http://meps.ahrq.gov/mepsweb/data_stats/meps_query.jsp, http://meps.ahrq.gov/mepsweb/data_stats/quick_tables.jsp, http://meps.ahrq.gov/mepsweb/data_stats/download_data_files.jsp
Investment Detail
AHRQ recently conducted a revision of planning and adjusted value based on the upcoming work schedule for MEPS. This normalization of costs has resulted in the current level of investment funding. The MEPS budget is increasing in 2019 because it is moving from the current platform to a new, modernized and more efficient environment. This transformation will require increased costs for implementation. It will also require a test phase prior to moving to a real-time setting. Once it is fully tested and operationalized, costs will decrease. This decrease may not be realized until 2021. AHRQ in cooperation with the MEPS-HC contractor, Westat, has engaged over the past two and a half years in a technological upgrade of the MEPS Computer Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI) instrument in order to position AHRQ to benefit from newer software features in the MEPS applications, to increase project reliance on commercial-off-shelf (COTS) software (Blaise ) and reduce reliance on custom supplemental software that was necessary in the past, and to more readily take advantage of future regular software feature and security updates from software vendors moving forward.
This work has resulted in a fully functional, Blaise COTS CAPI instrument that was fielded January 10, 2018. The data collected throughout 2018 will be cleaned, edited and will be subject to thorough quality control review over and above what has been done in the past to assure that the data released to the public is of the highest quality. This review and quality control process will initially result in greater resource costs moving to fiscal 2019 and 2020; the 2018 full year consolidated file is projected to be released August of 2020. Once the quality of the data has been assured moving forward these greater resource costs will decline toward their historical levels.
This work has resulted in a fully functional, Blaise COTS CAPI instrument that was fielded January 10, 2018. The data collected throughout 2018 will be cleaned, edited and will be subject to thorough quality control review over and above what has been done in the past to assure that the data released to the public is of the highest quality. This review and quality control process will initially result in greater resource costs moving to fiscal 2019 and 2020; the 2018 full year consolidated file is projected to be released August of 2020. Once the quality of the data has been assured moving forward these greater resource costs will decline toward their historical levels.