IBM MarketScan Details

The data dictionary is considered proprietary information and thus, can not be hosted online. Should you have a data pull or want a data pull through OSU, please reach out to Jack Chiang.

Type of Data

Administrative billing database

Years Available

At OSU: 2012-2020*
Note: 2012-2018 data contain all financial data whereas complete financial data for 2019 and 2020 is available in only 85% of the cohort.

Short Description

IBM’s MarketScan contains inpatient, outpatient, skilled nursing facility, and drug billing data for millions of privately insured individuals across the United States.

Strengths

  • Financial data including: out-of-pocket costs as well as total costs
  • Large sample sizes
  • 9 years of data available

Limitations

  • Not all insurers contribute data so participation is heavily regionalized
  • Clinically nuanced data is not available (only data points which can be derived from ICD-9/10 and CPT codes can be utilized)
  • Race/ethnicity of beneficiary is unknown
  • Geographic information is limited to beneficiary state/region and MSA only
  • Provider (physician and hospital) IDs are largely missing and anonymized
  • Only in-hospital mortality is known for the earlier years of data – long term mortality is entirely unknown

SDC Members with Expertise