Mark W. Smith

July 28, 2010

Fee Basis Data
Overview of Fee Basis Program

• Pays for care at non-VA facilities when

– it is the only source available, or 

– VA could save money

• Will cover any therapeutic, medically 

necessary treatment

• Nearly all outpatient care is pre-authorized; 

limited emergent care

2
Growth in Fee Basis

• Meteoric growth in last 10 years

– $556 million in FY2003, $3.8 billion in FY2009

– 10-20% growth per year

• Examples of major spending areas

– long-term care (community NHs)

– kidney dialysis

– radiology

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Uses of Fee Basis Data: Examples

• Quality and cost

– comparing VA to Fee Basis providers

– comparing alternative Fee Basis providers

– benchmarking: comparing Fee Basis providers to outside 

standard

• Access to care

– use of Fee Basis to reduce wait times at VA

– effect of new CBOCs on number of VHA enrollees 

• Coordination of care

– how VA and Fee Basis services are blended

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8 Fee Basis Files per Fiscal Year

• Inpatient care

– Hospital stays (facility or facility+physician)

– Ancillary, physician (if billed separately)

• Outpatient care

– Outpatient non-pharmacy 

– Payments to pharmacies

• Travel expenses

• Two vendor files (pharmacy, all other)

• Veterans with Fee Basis ID cards

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Clinical Data: Diagnosis Codes

Admission Discharge

Diagnoses Diagnoses

Inpatient Facility (INPT) -FY2008: 0 -FY2008: 5

FY2009-: 25 FY2009-: 25

Inpatient Ancillary (ANIP) -FY2008: 0 -FY2008: 0

FY2009-: 0 FY2009-: 1

Outpatient non-Rx (MED) -FY2008: 0 -FY2008: 1

FY2009-: 0 FY2009-: 1

Outpatient Rx (PHR) all years: 0 all years: 0

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Clinical Data: Procedure Codes

ICD-9 CPT CPT

Procedure Procedure Modifier

Codes Codes1 Codes

Inpatient Facility (INPT) -FY2008: 5 -FY2008: 0 -FY2008: 0

FY2009-: 25 FY2009-: 0 FY2009-: 0

Inpatient Ancillary (ANIP) all years: 0 0

2

-FY2007: 0

FY2008-: 4

Outpatient non-Rx (MED) all years: 1 1 -FY2004: 0

FY2005-: 4

Outpatient Rx (PHR) all years: 0 0 0

1 both HCPCS Level I (“CPT”) and Level II (“HCPCS”) codes

2 variable exists but is always blank

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Financial Data

• Amount claimed (PAMTCL)

• Amount paid (DISAMT, AMOUNT)

– often much less than amount claimed

– since FY2007, DISAMT and AMOUNT are equal but 

have slightly differing numbers of missing values

• Many financial processing variables

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Highlights of Vendor Data

• Vendor ID (link to utilization/claims records)

• Name

• Location (county, state, zip)

• Related VA station number

• Payment totals by month

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Selected Vendor Data: Examples

sta3n vzip homecnty homstate venname 

(true names not used here)

358 944000000 88000 88 Santa Teresa Hosp

405 57531483 50001 50 Counseling Service of 

Highland

405 56010647 50007 50 Jefferson County

436 591026686 30111 30 Adlai Stewart DDS

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Records vs. Encounters

• LINENO refers to consecutive records for the 

same person

• Each row of data represents a service provided 

for a particular date (outpatient) or time 

period (inpatient)

– TREATDTF: Inpatient start of invoice period

– TREATDTO: Inpatient end of invoice period

– TREATDT: Outpatient date of service 

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Records vs. Encounters

• Inpatient encounters

– Locate all records for the same encounter using SCRSSN 

and treatment dates (TREATDTF, TREATDTO)

– Use vendor ID to distinguish between contiguous stays 

over two or more locations, such as these:

• transfer from NH to hospital or hospital to NH

• transfer between hospitals

– Concatenate inpatient records to estimate overall length of 

stay

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Overlap with Other Files

• A majority of stays in the PTF Non-VA 

Hospitalization (NVH) file also appear in the 

Fee Basis data. 

– The reverse is not true: most Fee Basis records are 

not in the Non-VA Hospitalization file.

• Monthly community nursing home (CNH) 

claims are recorded as outpatient services in 

DSS national data extracts (NDEs).

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Records vs. Encounters

• Outpatient services

– Each billable procedure (CPT or HCPCS code) will 

have its own Fee Basis record

• Outpatient pharmacy

– For prescriptions obtained from a pharmacy, Fee 

Basis files show only the total VA payment to the 

pharmacy for the month 

– Medications injected in a clinic should have a 

separate Fee Basis record with a “J code” (HCPCS 

code begins with letter ‘J’)

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Notes

• Blank fields are common! They could mean 

“not applicable” as well as “missing.”

• Each paid invoice has a separate record.

– Example: an inpatient stay typically has one 

invoice (and therefore one record) for each

calendar month.

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Notes

• Over 90% of claims are processed within 30 days 

BUT

• Claims (invoices) may be sent LONG after services are 

rendered.

THEREFORE

• To find all services in a fiscal year, look in the Fee Basis 

files in that year and the following 1-2 years. 

• Search by

– TREATDTF and TREATDTO for inpatient records

– TREATDT for outpatient records

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Completeness by Window Length

If you look for FYnn you will find about this 

records over this many percent of FYnn records:

years...

1..............................70%

2..............................96%

3..............................99%

Example: About 96% of claims pertaining to services rendered in 

FY08 will be paid by the end of FY09.

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Cautions

• Watch for outliers: extremely long stays

• If a stay appears to end on September 30, 

check the October records

• Look over a long period (2+ years) to find all 

records pertaining to an inpatient stay

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Sharing Agreements

• Sharing agreements are contracts with non-VA 

providers. They represent an alternative way 

of hiring non-VA services.

• Some care from sharing agreements is 

recorded in the Fee Basis files.

– e.g., DoD hospitals in Alaska and Hawaii

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Person-Level Summary Data

HERC Person-Level Cost Datasets

- summarize total cost by person, fiscal year, and category 

- data sources: HERC Average Cost datasets, DSS Pharmacy 

Extract 

New! Summary variables for Fee Basis will soon be added: 

- total Fee inpatient spending (facility + ancillary)

- total Fee outpatient spending (services + pharmacy)

An updated guidebook will list variables and estimation details.

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Other Resources

- Fee Basis intranet web site 

* record of national Fee monthly calls

- HERC intranet web site

* guidebook on Fee Basis data

* technical report analyzing FY2003 data

(coming soon: FY2007 update)

- HERC customer service: herc@va.gov 

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Questions on Fee Basis Files?

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