MarketScan Medicare Mortality Edition Database

MarketScan is one of the largest and longest running proprietary US claims databases used for healthcare research. The data come from a selection of large employers, health plans, and government and public organizations. The database includes de-identified, patient-level longitudinal data for nearly 300 million unique patients, using data from several domains.

The Medicare Mortality Edition Database uses the same structure and naming convention as the Medicare Standard Edition Database but includes the mortality table. It expands the MarketScan Standard Edition core data tables with mortality detail from three sources: (1) patients identified as dead in the MarketScan inpatient admission summary; (2) individuals identified as dead from the Social Security Administration’s (SSN) Death Master File (DMF) who are linkable to MarketScan enrollment; (3) individuals identified as dead from the enrollment file from MarketScan contributors. Its inpatient and outpatient medical/surgical data are stored in the following tables:

• The Mortality Detail Table contains person-level information including month and year of death for those with an inpatient death, a death linked to the Death Master File (DMF) provided by the Social Security Administration, or a death from a contributor enrollment file as well as two death denominator indicators for whether the MarketScan enrollee was linkable to DMF or a plan that contributed death from enrollment.
• The Enrollment Detail Table contains one record per person per month of enrollment with demographic and plan information for that month.
• The Annual Enrollment Summary Table contains a single record per person per year with total enrollment days, months and monthly arrays for enrollment (yes/no), days enrolled, data type, and plan type.
• The Outpatient Pharmaceutical Claims Table captures mail-order and retail program prescription drug claims.
• The Outpatient Services Table contains encounters and claims for services rendered in a doctor’s office, hospital outpatient facility, emergency department, other outpatient facility.
• The Inpatient Services Table contains the facility and professional services associated with an acute-care inpatient admission.
• The Inpatient Admissions Table summarizes all information associated with an acute hospital admission (for example, hospital claims, physician claims, surgeon claims, and claims from independent laboratories). Facility and professional payment information are summarized for the admission.
• The Facility Header Table contains complete header information from facility claims. A Facility Header Record identifier (FACHDID) exists on both the Facility Header Table and the Inpatient Services and Outpatient Claims Tables to identify the individual service lines that each header corresponds to.