CAHPS Data Documentation

Here you will find details on items, variables, and composite variables on the Medicare CAHPS surveys, and differences across health plan survey type and survey years. Survey items may have changed over time, so please see the documentation below for information on when items and composites were offered.

Constructed variables

Several variables have been constructed added to the CAHPS survey data file. You can find more information about these variables in the Data Dictionary. For example, the variable (INSEER) identifies CAHPS respondents who were found in the SEER file and were diagnosed with cancer between 1973 and 2017. Several variables were also calculated to describe the timing of the survey relative to cancer diagnosis including the patient's cancer status at the time of the survey (CA_STAT). These variables can be used to select a subset of respondents or surveys based on pre/post-cancer diagnosis; for example, selecting number of cancers before survey equal to 0 (NUMCABEF = 0) will keep only surveys prior to any cancer diagnosis.