{Reference Type}: Journal Article
{Title}: Linking Trauma Registry Patients With Insurance Claims: Creating a Longitudinal Patient Record.
{Author}: Oliphant BW;Cain-Nielsen AH;Jarman MP;Sangji NF;Scott JW;Regenbogen S;Hemmila MR;
{Journal}: J Surg Res
{Volume}: 295
{Issue}: 0
{Year}: 2024 Mar 3
{Factor}: 2.417
{DOI}: 10.1016/j.jss.2023.11.002
{Abstract}: <B>BACKGROUND: </B>Trauma registries and their quality improvement programs only collect data from the acute hospital admission, and no additional information is captured once the patient is discharged. This lack of long-term data limits these programs' ability to affect change. The goal of this study was to create a longitudinal patient record by linking trauma registry data with third party payer claims data to allow the tracking of these patients after discharge.<BR><B>METHODS: </B>Trauma quality collaborative data (2018-2019) was utilized. Inclusion criteria were patients age ≥18, ISS ≥5 and a length of stay ≥1 d. In-hospital deaths were excluded. A deterministic match was performed with insurance claims records based on the hospital name, date of birth, sex, and dates of service (±1 d). The effect of payer type, ZIP code, International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification diagnosis specificity and exact dates of service on the match rate was analyzed.<BR><B>RESULTS: </B>The overall match rate between these two patient record sources was 27.5%. There was a significantly higher match rate (42.8% versus 6.1%, P < 0.001) for patients with a payer that was contained in the insurance collaborative. In a subanalysis, exact dates of service did not substantially affect this match rate; however, specific International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification codes (i.e., all 7 characters) reduced this rate by almost half.<BR><B>CONCLUSIONS: </B>We demonstrated the successful linkage of patient records in a trauma registry with their insurance claims. This will allow us to the collect longitudinal information so that we can follow these patients' long-term outcomes and subsequently improve their care.