The Census Bureau has conducted a systematic assessment of its data assets and capabilities to identify opportunities for delivering new insights on the functioning of the country’s healthcare system. This work has evolved into the construction of an experimental Medical Practitioner Data Frame, which uses novel data linkages of dozens of federal datasets—principally restricted administrative records—to offer new and independent insights into physician and advanced practitioner (such as nurse practitioners) demographics, career trajectories, employer characteristics, and the increasingly complex organizational relationships between clinicians and their places of work.

Specifically, the Medical Practitioner Data Frame—for the first time—brings together restricted microdata from the following sources:

• Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) data: to identify and describe physicians and advanced practitioners in the United States.
• Census Bureau demographic data: to enhance insights into medical practitioner demographics, income, and the communities they serve.
• Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data: to uniquely link medical practitioners to their affiliated businesses (via employment, ownership, or self-employment) using annual tax records, rather than by relying on claims data or self-reported directories traditionally used to identify these relationships.
• Census Bureau business data: to characterize medical practitioners’ places of work and the institutions through which they provide care, including detailed information about their size, industry, financials, legal form, locations, and organizational structures.

Working alongside the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), the EHealth team enhances the Data Frame by incorporating additional detailed information on advanced practitioners (such as nurse practitioners) and emergency departments. These linked data offer new and enhanced statistics on physicians and advanced practitioners, their affiliated institutions, and their role in the healthcare system across time. Placed within the context of community data, the Medical Practitioner Data Frame provides an opportunity to examine how medical practitioners and access to care are impacted by industry consolidation, state-level policy variations, and community socio-economic characteristics. The Data Frame is expected to offer a valuable new tool for enhancing healthcare delivery, informing workforce planning, and analyzing the healthcare industry.