MEPS – Provider Look-up 

Enhancement

CE Survey Methods Symposium, BLS

July, 2018

Marie Stagnitti

Adam Biener

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

Angie Kistler

Westat
Disclaimer

The views expressed are those of the authors, and do not 

necessarily represent those of the Agency for Healthcare 

Research and Quality or the US Department of Health and 

Human Services.
Introduction

The purpose of this talk is to showcase a new technological 

enhancement, a look-up feature for reporting medical care 

providers, added to the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey 

(MEPS).
Background: MEPS Survey Components

• MEPS-HC: Household Component

• Annual survey of 15,000 households 

• Provides national estimates of health care use, expenditures, 

insurance coverage, sources of payment, access to care and 

health care quality

• MEPS-MPC: Medical Provider Component

• Follow-back survey of medical providers linked to 

respondents of the HC
Background: Medical Provider Component

• Survey of approximately 5,000 hospitals, 12,000 office based 

providers (OBDs), 7,500 pharmacies, 500 home health care 

agencies, and 12,000 separately billing doctors linked to 

respondents of the HC

• The MPC collects data that household respondents cannot 

accurately provide, such as dates of visit, charges and payments, 

diagnosis and procedure codes

► Essential for accuracy of MEPS expenditure estimates
Goals of MEPS-HC enhancements

• Reduce cognitive burden of responding

• Reduce response errors that impede MPC data 

collection

• Simplify interview administration / reduce survey costs
Provider Look-up Enhancement has...

• Reduce cognitive burden of responding

► Google style look-up less burdensome than previous CAPI provider 

enumeration

► One step entry

► No required parameters for search - allows respondent to report what 

they can, in order they prefer

• Reduce response errors that impede MPC data 

collection

• Simplify interview administration / reduce survey costs
Provider Look-up Enhancement has...

• Reduce cognitive burden of responding

► Google style look-up less burdensome than current CAPI provider 

enumeration

► One step entry

► No required parameters for search - allows respondent to report what 

they can, in order they prefer

• Reduce response errors that impede MPC data 

collection

► Fewer opportunities for entry errors

• Simplify interview administration / reduce survey costs
Provider Look-up Enhancement has...

• Reduce cognitive burden of responding

► Google style look-up less burdensome than current CAPI provider 

enumeration.

► One step entry; no required parameters for search - allows respondent 

to report what they can, in order they prefer

• Reduce response errors that impede MPC data 

collection

► Fewer opportunities for entry errors

• Simplify interview administration / reduce survey costs

► Interviewer has short list of high likelihood matches to use in interview

► Less time required to abstract hand entered providers

► Fewer Authorization Forms (AFs), consolidation of MPC requests reduce 

provider duplication and improve MPC fielding
Provider Look-up Enhancement

• Provider Directory

► Free registry of providers with active National Provider Identifier 

(NPI) maintained by CMS National Plan and Provider 

Enumeration System (NPPES)

• Provider Look-up

► The Blaise system supports a smart search engine called trigram

search

► Google style look-up that matches search string to records in NPI 

directory in real time
Blaise Trigram Search

• Interviewer types in search string
Blaise Trigram Search

• Interviewer types in search string

• All relevant fields (name, address, phone) for each 

record in NPI directory concatenated into a single text 

string (index)
Blaise Trigram Search

• Interviewer types in search string

• All relevant fields (name, address, phone) for each 

record in NPI directory concatenated into a single text 

string (index)

• Search string and indices are cut into three-character 

strings called trigrams (leading and following spaces 

added)
Blaise Trigram Search

• Interviewer types in search string

• All relevant fields (name, address, phone) for each 

record in NPI directory concatenated into a single text 

string (index)

• Search string and indices are cut into three-character 

strings called trigrams (leading and following spaces 

added)

• Match score calculated based on how many trigrams 

from search string are present in the directory indices
Blaise Trigram Search

• Interviewer types in search string

• All relevant fields (name, address, phone) for each 

record in NPI directory concatenated into a single text 

string (index)

• Search string and indices are cut into three-character 

strings called trigrams (leading and following spaces 

added)

• Match score calculated based on how many trigrams 

from search string are present in the directory indices

• Records with highest match scores above a threshold 

are displayed 
MEPS Specific Enhancements

• Provider Directory

► Directory for each interview tailored for respondent

► Restricted to providers within a 100-mile radius of respondents 

zip code

► Will add national centers for excellence in the near future

• Provider Look-up

► Optimal search heuristics developed by AHRQ and WESTAT and 

tested by Field Interviewers

− Start with phone number and/or unique text in provider name; more likely to 

whittle down to exact match than generic provider name, which may have 

many erroneous matches
DEMO

• Interface between Blaise CAPI interview and 

search tool

• Different approaches for search strings, focusing 

on “unique” information

• Variations in search results
Preliminary results with Look-Up Enhancement

• In prior version of look-up, the “match” rate had dropped 

to below 60%

• Using the enhanced look-up, we observe a little over an 

76% match rate

• Using same approach for looking up Pharmacy 

providers, we observe a 87% match rate
Applications of Look-up Enhancements

• Could be used for quick search of other large databases, 

such as ICD10, etc.

► Like MEPS, prior information on survey population can help to do 

further enhancements and refine search/selection process to 

further reduce burden and time of interview

• Simplifies interviewer training – familiarity with typical 

search engines (Bing, Google)

► Less “new learning”
Conclusion

New provider look-up tool can improve HC and MPC 

collection:

• Reduce interview burden – Improve interviewers ability to work with 

respondent to select providers

• NPI directory can result in more accurate provider data

• Better data can streamline MPC data collection

► Fewer contact groups, fewer AFs due to less duplication

► More accurate/complete/consistent provider address/phone number information 

reduce amount of contacts to locate a provider

► Fewer contacts lower survey costs

• Technology can be generalized to other computerassisted interviews when a large database is available
Thank you!