RESEARCH ARTICLE


The Use of Claims Data in Healthcare Research



Kari Ferver, Bryan Burton, Paul Jesilow*
Department of Criminology, Law and Society, School of Social Ecology, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-7080, USA.


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Creative Commons License
Kari et al.; Licensee Bentham Open

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Criminology, Law and Society, School of Social Ecology, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-7080, USA; Fax: 949 824 3001; Tel: 949 856 0677; E-mails: paul.jesilow@uci.edu


Abstract

Background:

Claims-based studies have become common during the past 15 years. The electronic records of millions of transactions include information entered on bills (claims) submitted by healthcare providers to third-party payers. They are an attractive data source to researchers; however, they contain many weaknesses that threaten the integrity of many studies that utilize them.

Purpose:

We wanted to learn: (1) how widespread are studies that utilize claims data; (2) in what healthcare areas are claims data being used; (3) is the use of claims data increasing; and (4) do researchers inform readers of the weaknesses of the data?

Data Sources:

1,956 original research studies, published during 2000-2005 in five healthcare journals, were reviewed to: (1) determine their data sources, (2) establish their healthcare areas, and (3) if claims-based, to ascertain any discussion of the data’s weaknesses.

Conclusions:

Use of claims databases in research may have leveled. They are often used to study healthcare areas for which they may be appropriate, but they are also used in areas where they might not be suitable. Less than half the authors of claims-based research mentioned any weaknesses of the data.