THE QUALITY OF HEALTH DATA OBTAINED IN A NEW SURVEY OF ELDERLY AMERICANS - A VALIDATION-STUDY OF THE PROPOSED MEDICARE BENEFICIARY HEALTH-STATUS REGISTRY (MBHSR)

The Medicare Beneficiary Health Status Registry (MBHSR) is a proposed new survey program that would collect health status indicators annuall y from large probability samples of Medicare beneficiaries. For reason s of economy, the MBHSR would use mail survey procedures with telephon e follow-up of nonrespondents. Because of concerns about response rate s and the validity and reliability of the data obtained by such method s, a large-scale (N = 1,922) field test was conducted. The field test assessed the validity of MBHSR survey reports of past medical treatmen t and conditions by comparing those reports with Medicare claims data. It assessed the (internal) reliability of MBHSR survey responses by c omparing responses with logically related survey questions from the MB HSR. Analyses indicate that the MBHSR survey procedures using a combin ation of mail data collection with telephone follow-up of nonresponden ts produced relatively high levels of sensitivity and specificity in i dentifying medical treatments and procedures previously recorded in Me dicare claims data. In addition, the MBHSR Field Test obtained, in gen eral, relatively high levels of internal consistency in survey reports .