title: Reconciling medical expenditure estimates from the MEPS and NHEA, 2007.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Provide a comparison of health care expenditure estimates for 2007 from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) and the National Health Expenditure Accounts (NHEA). Reconciling these estimates serves two important purposes. First, it is an important quality assurance exercise for improving and ensuring the integrity of each source's estimates. Second, the reconciliation provides a consistent baseline of health expenditure data for policy simulations. Our results assist researchers to adjust MEPS to be consistent with the NHEA so that the projected costs as well as budgetary and tax implications of any policy change are consistent with national health spending estimates.
  
  
  METHODS
  The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey produced by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the National Health Center for Health Statistics and the National Health Expenditures produced by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service's Office of the Actuary.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In this study, we focus on the personal health care (PHC) sector, which includes the goods and services rendered to treat or prevent a specific disease or condition in an individual. The official 2007 NHEA estimate for PHC spending is $1,915 billion and the MEPS estimate is $1,126 billion. Adjusting the NHEA estimates for differences in underlying populations, covered services, and other measurement concepts reduces the NHEA estimate for 2007 to $1,366 billion. As a result, MEPS is $240 billion, or 17.6 percent, less than the adjusted NHEA total.
authors.affiliation: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
authors.forename: Didem
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bernard
authors.affiliation: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
authors.forename: Cathy
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cowan
authors.affiliation: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Selden
authors.affiliation: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
authors.forename: Liming
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cai
authors.affiliation: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
authors.forename: Aaron
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Catlin
authors.affiliation: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Heffler
mesh_terms: D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005102:Health Expenditures / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008484:Medicaid / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006278:Medicare / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D016270:United States Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality / Q000706:statistics & numerical data
keywords: health care costs; health financing; health resource; medical expenditures; national health accounts