Appointments and No-Shows
NOS (No Show records). This MCA NDE includes records for no-shows. Records are included if a patient did not show for an appointment that was scheduled in VistA.
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Capital Assets
The Fixed Asset Package tells the acquisition cost, useful life, depreciation, and undepreciated balance of all VA capital assets.
Charge Details
OCRED (Outpatient Credit Stop). This MCA National Data Extract sums all charge detail (CHGDTL) records into each Credit Stop value resulting in one record for each Credit Stop value. All CHGDTL records without a Credit Stop are summed into one record for the "000" Credit Stop values.
Facility Locations and Characteristics
The Veteran Administration Site Tracking system (VAST) provides the location and characteristics of VA facilities and contract providers. This file was created by VA Planning Systems Support Group (PSSG) in Gainesville, FL.
VA Facility-Level Costs
ADUSH/VSSC Web Site
The Assistant Deputy Under Secretary for Health/VISN Service Support Center web site generates reports on cost, patients, and services provided in the VA healthcare system. To log on, you will need:
- Your system logon id
- Your password
- The name of the VA domain that you are on
Contact your systems administrator if you need help. The VA web site serves as an interface to generate reports from VA data for queries in which the user would normally have to write SAS programs. A variety of pre-formatted reports are available for download such as annual inpatient and outpatient costs per patient, and the number of unique patients at a medical center, regional network (VISN), or the entire VA system. An Austin timesharing account is required to run custom reports.
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MCA Department Level Extract
The Managerial Cost Accounting (MCA) data can be used to identify costs for a medical center or department. MCA data exist since fiscal year 2000. These data are available as National Data Extract (NDE) Files at the VA Corporate Data Warehouse.
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Financial Management System (FMS) Data
We recommend that analysts use the Managerical Cost Accounting System ALBCC extract as the source of department level costs, as it contains for detail that FMS data. FMS is the source of the MCA ALBCC data. Persons interested in details of the FMS system can learn more by reading chapter 3.2 of the HERC Micro-Cost Handbook, however, this guide is now out of date, and does not include the format information needed to read the most recent FMS data files.
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VA Inpatient Stays per Bedsection
Tabulate VA inpatient stays per bedsection. These instructions describe how to use the VHA Service Support Center (VSSC) data reports to tabulate the number of inpatient days and inpatient stays in each bedsection.
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Laboratory
LAB (Laboratory). This MCA NDE provides details on laboratory tests that have been performed on a patient. This is sometimes referred to as the "fact-of-lab". It includes information about which test was performed, the date of the test, and its cost, but not the test results.
LAR (Laboratory results). This MCA NDE reports laboratory test results for a limited number of laboratory tests. Results from less than 100 common laboratory tests are included in this file. This dataset is clinical in nature and does not have cost information. Many analysts will want to obtain laboratory test results directly from the Corporate Data Warehouse, which is a copy of all test results as they appeared in VISTA.
Long-Term Care
RAI (Resident Assessment Instrument). This MCA NDE divides nursing home stays into segments per fiscal year based on the RAI score. Clinical staff in the nursing home gauge a resident’s needs and strengths using the RAI.
Data from the Non-VA Medical Care system input in SAS files at the VA Austin Information Technology Center (AITC). The files that contain Non-VA Medical Care include Veterans receiving ongoing Non-VA Medical care:
MDPPRD.MDP.SAS.FEN.FYyy.VET
The VET file lists individuals who've received Non-VA Medical long-term care.
VA Outpatient Visits per Clinic Stop
VA outpatient visits per clinic stop. These instructions describe how to use the VHA Service Support Center (VSSC) data reports to tabulate the number of outpatient visits to each clinic stop.
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Prosthetics
DDC. This MCA NDE is a prosthetics database in which each record is a prosthetic item shipped to a patient by the Denver Acquisition and Logistics Center, formerly known as the Denver Distribution Center.
Providers
A number of VA data sets identify health care providers. These include files with outpatient visits, inpatient encounters, primary care team assignments, hospital discharges, prescription fills, and laboratory and radiology orders.
The data may be accessed only by VA employees who have appropriate permission. These employees must have permission to use the VA Austin Information Technology Center. If the data are used for research, the study must be approved by a human subjects institutional review board.
The National Health Care Practitioner Database consists of several files that include the 18 digit provider identifier number, the provider’s name, and the encrypted social security number.
The 18 digit provider identification number is made up of the 3 digit station identifier (STA3N) followed by a facility assigned number. MCA uses an 11 digit identifier that does not include the station identifier. Contact HERC for SAS code that can convert the MCA identifier to the 18 digit format. Since the provider identifier number is assigned by the facility, a provider who works at multiple facilities will have a different identification number assigned by each facility. The encrypted social security number can be used to identify all numbers assigned to a single provider. VA has recently adopted a national system of provider identifiers, but it is not yet used in VA utilization datasets.
Many of the files with provider data also include a 6-character code that represents the type of provider and the provider's area of specialization.This system was developed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the American National Standards Institute; it is currently administered by the National Uniform Claim Committee (NUCC). VA providers include physicians, nurses, mental health professionals and others; this code identifies distinguishes different medical specialties, residents and interns, RN, LVN, and different types of therapists. The national provider database does not include this code.
Many of the tables in the Corporate Data Warehouse now identify the provider associated with the care. Researchers who obtain appropriate permissions may use the Standard Identifier (PROVIDERSID) in these tables to link encounters and orders with information on the provider.
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Radiology
RAD (Radiology). This MCA NDE reports detailed information on radiological procedures. It includes information on the type, cost and number of individual procedures. This included data captured in the Diagnostic Radiology and Nuclear Medicine Departments for which there are costs reported.
Surgery
SUR (Surgery). This NDE provides detail on surgeries. Included is all care recorded in the VistA Surgery package. It excludes cancellations and aborted cases.
SUA (Aborted Surgeries). This NDE lists all cancellations and aborted cases for surgeries recorded in the VistA Surgery package.
Travel
VA provides reimbursement to veterans who incur significant travel expense to obtain care. This information is documented in the purchased care travel expense file. SAS files located at the VA Austin Information Technology Center (AITC) that include travel expenses are named: MDPPRD.MDP.SAS.FEN.FYyy.TVL with the yy representing a year of the file.
Vendors
Non-VA providers who provider services to Veterans in the VA purchased care project are identified in a Vendor file. The SAS vendor files at the VA Austin Information Technology Center (AITC) are called:
MDPPRD.MDP.SAS.FEN.FYyy.VEN
The two vendor files are for medical (VEN) and pharmacy (PHARVEN) vendors. The field "amount of treatment" is the amount paid to vendors; this should equal the amount in the payment files.
Wards
WARD. This MCA NDE provides details on the wards during an inpatient stays