1996 NATIONAL AMBULATORY MEDICAL CARE SURVEY DATA FILE AND FILE DOCUMENTATION WARNING - DATA USE RESTRICTIONS! Read Carefully before Using The Public Health Service Act (Section 308 (d)) provides that the data collected by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), may be used only for the purpose of health statistical reporting and analysis. Any effort to determine the identity of any reported case is prohibited by this law. NCHS does all it can to assure that the identity of data subjects cannot be disclosed. All direct identifiers, as well as any characteristics that might lead to identification, are omitted from the dataset. Any intentional identification or disclosure of a person or establishment violates the assurances of confidentiality given to the providers of the information. Therefore, users will: 1. Use the data in this dataset for statistical reporting and analysis only. 2. Make no use of the identity of any person or establishment discovered inadvertently and advise the Director, NCHS, of any such discovery. 3. Not link this dataset with individually identifiable data from other NCHS or non-NCHS datasets. By using these data, you signify your agreement to comply with the above-stated statutorily based requirements. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Please continue to next page. - 1 - The files listed below comprise the 1996 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey with complete file documentation, all in ASCII format. The 1996 NAMCS dataset is located in: ftp://ftp.cdc.gov/pub/Health_Statistics/NCHS/Datasets/NAMCS The documentation files for the 1996 NAMCS dataset are located in: ftp://ftp.cdc.gov/pub/Health_Statistics/NCHS/Dataset_Documentation/NAMCS For ease of transmission, these files have been converted into a self- extracting compressed format. To load and expand the NAMCS data file, do the following: first, copy the compressed file onto your hard drive into an appropriate subdirectory (for example, NAMCS). Then go to the DOS prompt in that subdirectory and type the name of the file (NAMCS96) without its extension. The eleven documentation files listed below have been compressed into a single self-extracting file. To load and expand them, follow the steps above, using the file name DOC96 instead of NAMCS96. Size (bytes) File Name File Description Compressed Uncompressed NAMCS96.EXE NAMCS dataset 1,124,242 13,591,080 DOC96.EXE NAMCS documentation files 123,635 362,097 The documentation file (DOC96.EXE) will expand to include the following: DESCRIPT Description of the NAMCS 37,929 FORMAT Record format 52,873 SPECLIST Physician specialty list 5,312 MARGINAL Marginal data 12,080 RSE Relative standard errors 18,482 TERMS Definition of survey terms 5,071 PRF Patient Record form 26,596 RVC Reason for Visit Classification 82,450 GENCODES List of generic codes and names 46,631 MEDCODES List of drug entry codes and names 67,932 NDC List of drug classes 6,741 Total compressed file size (data and documentation) = 1,247,877 Total inflated file size = 13,953,177 CAUTION - Because the NAMCS is a sample survey, the application of weights to the sample data is REQUIRED to produce national estimates of office visits, as well as to accurately assess the sampling error of statistics based on the survey data. Please refer to the appropriate documentation files (DESCRIPT, RSE) for information on how to apply the weights and to obtain relative standard errors of national estimates. Please continue to next page. - 2 - For questions, suggestions, or comments concerning NAMCS data, please contact the Ambulatory Care Statistics Branch at (301) 436-7132. These and other survey data are also available on CD-ROM and public use data tape, as well as in published summaries. For additional information on NCHS data products, contact the: Data Dissemination Branch, NCHS 6525 Belcrest Rd. Hyattsville, MD 20782 Tel: (301) 436-8500 E-mail: nchsquery@nch10a.em.cdc.gov Internet: http://www.cdc.gov/nchswww/nchs/home.htm - 3 -