Description

For persons with a private insurance plan, HITYPEN1HMO is a recoded variable that indicates whether the person's first plan was an HMO (Health Maintenance Organization) or a non-HMO. Respondents were asked, "What is the complete name of the first plan? Do not include plans that only provide extra cash while in the hospital or plans that pay for only one type of service, such as nursing home care, accidents, or dental care." If necessary, interviewers asked, "Do you have your health plan card or something with the plan name on it?" Based on the plan name, the NCHS coded persons into HMO or non-HMO plan types.

The 2008 Field Representative's Manual provided the following definition of an HMO: "HMOs or Health Maintenance Organizations are health delivery systems that offer comprehensive health coverage for hospital and physician services for a prepaid, fixed fee."

The responses to HIP1TYPENHMO reflect editing by the NCHS to ensure accuracy in private coverage.

Beginning in 2011, the variables HITYPEN1HMO and HITYPEN2HMO, were discontinued. These variables are no longer on the public use file or through the NCHS Research Data Centers (RDCs).

In previous years (1997-2007), the NHIS also provided the public use variables HINAME1 through HINAME4 which were used to provide information on HMO model types, point of service (POS) model types, fee for service plans (FFS), and preferred provider organization (PPO) plans. These can still be accessed through the NCHS Research Data Centers for 2008 forward.

Users may also want to see the variable HIPTYPER which indicates whether the plan is an HMO or non HMO for surveys where available for 1980 forward.

Comparability

There are no comparability issues.

This variable is similar to HINAME1, but provides a simplified recoding scheme. The IPUMS NHIS has also created the variable HIPTYPER which indicates whether the plan is an HMO or non HMO for surveys where available for 1980 forward.

Because of the editing process that NCHS used to verify insurance status for 1997 forward, users should not combine this indicator of HMO coverage with pre-1997 variables, such as HI1HMO (health insurance plan 1: HMO, 1986, 1989, 1992); HI1HMOCOVR (health insurance plan 1: HMO coverage recode, 1986, 1989, 1992-1995); or HI1HMOR( health insurance plan 1: HMO recode, 1993-1995). These variables reflect reporting of private coverage that has not been verified for accuracy (not been subject to NCHS editing). Users are strongly encouraged to refer to HIPRIVATEE for more information on this editing process.

Universe

Availability

• 2008-2010

Weights

• 2008-2010 : PERWEIGHT