Description

For all persons eligible for the Access to Care section (ACCESSELIG) who have a usual source of care provider (USUALPL) that is a hospital (USCMEDTYP) and provided a main reason for having a hospital as their usual source of care (WHYUSCHOSP), USHOSYINS indicates that individuals use the hospital as their primary source of care because of reasons related to insurance, in addition to the main reason they specified in WHYUSCHOSP. Persons who reported a main reason for using the hospital as their usual source of care were asked to report any additional reasons, and could list more than one reason as part of this follow-up question.

USHOSYINS is collected as part of the Access to Care section, which gathers information on usual source of care for all family members, characteristics of usual source of care health providers, and barriers family members have faced in obtaining needed health care. Please see WHYUSCHOSP for all variables pertaining to why the respondent uses a hospital as their usual source of care and ACCESSELIG for more information about the Access to Care section.

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.

Comparability

Note that in all years except 1997, the universe for USHOSYINS is all persons eligible for the Access to Care section (ACCESSELIG) who have a usual source of care provider (USUALPL) that is a hospital (USCMEDTYP) and provided a main reason for having a hospital as their usual source of care (WHYUSCHOSP). In 1997 only, the universe appears to be all persons eligible for the Access to Care section (ACCESSELIG) who have a usual source of care provider (USUALPL). Therefore, those who have an office-based usual source of care as reported in USCMEDTYP have a response to USHOSYINS. However, all such persons are coded as "no" in USHOSYINS. This appears to be a coding error, since these individuals are marked as out of universe for all other variables indicating why the respondent uses the hospital as their usual source of care in 1997.

Additionally, users should note that the Access to Care variables are not designed to yield full-year estimates in 1997, as the section is only administered in Round 2 instead of Rounds 2 and 4. The 1997 AHRQ documentation advises that "The 1997 Access to Care variables cannot be used to make full-year estimates, but can be useful in such analyses as trend analyses, or for enhancing subgroup analyses. These variables may be of particular interest because of the 1997 oversample of populations (such as poverty, children with activity limitations, adults with functional limitations, high medical expenditure cases, and the elderly) where access issues are particularly relevant" (C-16). Because USHOSYINS is only collected in Round 2 in 1997 instead of Rounds 2 and 4, USHOSYINS cannot be used to make a full-year estimate in 1997. Otherwise, the variable is comparable over time.

Universe

Availability

• 1996-2001

Weights

• 1996-2001 : PERWEIGHT

Flags