Identifying Medicare Beneficiaries with Disabilities: Improving on Claims-Based Algorithms

This report uses data on fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries who first responded to the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey in 2003-2006 to assess the feasibility of using existing claims-based indicators to identify community-dwelling Medicare beneficiaries with disability based solely on the conditions for which they are being treated. Six claims-based disability indicators were constructed and used in logistic regression models to predict three indicators of disability based on self-reports on activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental activity of daily living. The performance of the predictive models is assessed using receiver operating characteristic curves and misclassification analysis. The report concludes that predictive models that incorporate multiple claims-based indicators provide an improved tool for researchers seeking to identify people with disabilities in claims data.