F. Average Cost Estimates

9. Why does HERC Length of Stay (LOS) differ from PTF main LOS in some cases?

A HERC Average Cost Data User noted that:

1. For those patients who have an ADMITDAY in FY98, the PTF main and HERC LOS reconcile in 78% of the cases.

2. For those patients who have an ADMITDAY in FY99, the PTF main and HERC LOS reconcile in 99% of the cases, but still thousands of patients have a HERC LOS that cannot be matched in the PTF main.

HERC calculates LOS using the LSB variable from the PTF bedsection file. Page 18 of HERC's Inpatient guide elaborates on leave and pass days (available in our downloads section).

For stays that began before the beginning of a given fiscal year, HERC calculated the length of stay during that fiscal year by counting the number of days between the patient discharge date and the beginning of that fiscal year. This count excluded "leave" days--days that the patient was absent from the hospital, though not yet discharged. Leave days are also called Absent Bed Occupant Days, and are given the variable name LVB in the PTF.

The PTF file records leave days in a variable named LVB, but it does not record when they occurred. HERC assumed that leave days were uniformly distributed throughout the stay.

Therefore, the HERC LOS will differ from the PTF main LOS for stays that have LVB where the stay crosses fiscal years. For discharges that did not have leave and pass days, the reconciliation should be perfect. Also, HERC stays that only involved acute med/surg care are congruent with those in the PTF file.

To ensure the protection of VA information, we have restricted access to certain files (denoted by the "lock" icon). Contact HERC to download these restricted files.

• HERC’s Average Cost Datasets for VA Inpatient Care 1998 - 2005

  Date: 7/1/2006 | Size: 951Kb