Abstract
Publicly available provider-level Medicare Part B data sets have been increasingly utilized for health services research in dermatology. Despite offering detailed insights, an important limitation of these data sets is suppression of services performed for < 11 Medicare beneficiaries at the level of each provider. This longitudinal review assesses the magnitude of this limitation by comparing service counts in provider-level Medicare data sets to those in aggregate data sets, ultimately identifying a concordance rate of 94.3% for dermatology services. However, facility-based visits (52.5%), inpatient evaluation and management visits (59.7%), phototherapy (62.9%), incision and drainage (61.1%), and nail procedures (38.0%) were less well-represented in the provider-level data sets. Provider-level data sets are most suitable for assessing dermatology services in aggregate and among specific high-volume procedure groups but alternative data sets should be considered when investigating inpatient services, facility-based services (more common in certain states), or rarely performed procedures.
Data availability
The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services database at https://data.cms.gov.
References
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Study concept and design: HF. Acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data: CG. Drafting of the manuscript: CG, HF. Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: CG, HF. Statistical analysis: CG. Administrative, technical, or material support: CG, HF. Study supervision: HF.
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None relevant to this manuscript. Christian Gronbeck: none reported. Hao Feng: Consultant, Cytrellis Biosystems, Inc; Consultant, Soliton, Inc. The authors declare no competing interests.
IRB approval status
This study utilized publicly available online datasets and did not qualify as human subject research; therefore, institutional review board approval was not required at the University of Connecticut Health Center.
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Gronbeck, C., Feng, H. Assessment of comprehensiveness of Medicare Part B provider-level data sets within dermatology. Arch Dermatol Res 315, 1805–1807 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00403-023-02530-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00403-023-02530-8