Description
For all persons, VSEXPOPU captures the sum of direct payments made during the year by other public sources for the purchase of glasses and/or contact lenses.
AHRQ staff advise users to exercise caution when interpreting the expenditures recorded in VSEXPOPU. While these payments stem from apparent inconsistent responses to the health insurance and source of payment questions in the survey, some of these inconsistencies may have logical explanations. For example, some of the "other public" payments may stem from confusion between Medicaid and other state and local programs or may be for persons who were not enrolled in Medicaid, but were presumed eligible by a provider who ultimately received payments from the program. For more information on how MEPS collects expenditure data, please refer to our user note on medical expenditures.
Due to the data collection methodology, it was not possible to determine whether vision items that were reported in Round 3 had been purchased in the first or second year of the longitudinal panel. Therefore, expenses reported in Round 3 were only included in the annual file for a given year if more than half of the person's reference period for the round took place in that year.
Variables related to total annual health care expenditures by source of payment, total annual health care expenditures by type of medical service, and total annual health care charges are also available. Please refer to our user note on expenditures for a list of these variables.
VSEXPOPU is a 6-digit numeric variable.
Universe
- 1996-2018: All persons.
Availability
- 1996-2018
Weights
- 1996-2018 : PERWEIGHT
