Description

For emergency room visits and hospital inpatient stays (EVENTYPE) where the emergency room visit resulted in a hospital inpatient stay, ERHEVID is the EVNTID of the linked emergency room visit or hospital inpatient stay. ERHEVID allows users to link emergency room visits and hospital inpatient stays by providing the EVNTID of either the emergency room visit for hospital inpatient stays or the hospital inpatient stay for emergency room visits.

IPUMS MEPS reports the universe for each variable based on a thorough review of the original MEPS documentation. Investigating the data may reveal cases that do not meet the stated universe. Users are encouraged to validate universes for their analyses.

When an emergency room visit is linked to a hospital inpatient stay, the expenditures, except for separately billing doctor expenditures, are zero for the emergency room visit and are included in the expenditures for the hospital inpatient stay.

ERHEVID is on the event record (see RECTYPE for more details on the different record types in IPUMS MEPS). Variables offered on the event record through IPUMS MEPS are derived from the dental visits, other medical expenses, hospital inpatient stays, emergency room visits, outpatient visits, office-based medical provider visits, and home health event files provided by AHRQ. Please see our overview of the event, medical conditions, and prescribed medicines variables, including how those variables are offered through IPUMS MEPS, and general considerations to keep in mind when conducting analyses using these variables.

From 1996-2017, ERHEVID is a 12-character string variable. Beginning in 2018, ERHEVID is a 16-character string variable.

0000000000000000: NIU

Comparability

Other than changes in how EVNTID is constructed by AHRQ, there are no comparability issues.

Universe

Availability

• 1996-2021

Weights

• No weights are available for this variable. Please refer to ERHEVID for more information.

Flags