SEER-Medicare: Geographic Location of Care

Although both the cancer and non-cancer cases were identified from the person's place of residence in a SEER area, Medicare data are national, capturing care wherever it is provided. Thus, it is possible to have Medicare claims from non-SEER areas. It is possible to eliminate care provided in hospitals outside the SEER area by examining the first 2 digits of the hospital identification number, which indicate state. The state codes used in the Medicare data are Social Security Administration (SSA) codes, which differ from Federal Information Processing Standard codes.

SSA State Codes (PDF, 10 KB) are available in a PDF file.