# Why are non-physician, nurse practitioner and physician assistant office based visits not included for 2017-2019?

**URL:** <https://forum.ipums.org/t/why-are-non-physician-nurse-practitioner-and-physician-assistant-office-based-visits-not-included-for-2017-2019/4552>\
**Category:** HEALTH SURVEYS\
**Created:** [March 13, 2022, 6:09pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/why-are-non-physician-nurse-practitioner-and-physician-assistant-office-based-visits-not-included-for-2017-2019/4552 "2022-03-13T18:09:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Adam\_Bunnell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dc4da7/32.png) [@Adam\_Bunnell](https://forum.ipums.org/u/Adam_Bunnell)\
**Post date:** [March 13, 2022, 6:09pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/why-are-non-physician-nurse-practitioner-and-physician-assistant-office-based-visits-not-included-for-2017-2019/4552/1 "2022-03-13T18:09:41Z")

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I appreciate any insight into why these variables have not been translated over. I could not find any existing conversation on this topic, but please let me know if one does already exist.

Thanks!

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**Author:** ![Ivan\_Strahof](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.ipums.org/ivan_strahof/32/626_2.png) [@Ivan\_Strahof](https://forum.ipums.org/u/Ivan_Strahof)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2022, 8:20pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/why-are-non-physician-nurse-practitioner-and-physician-assistant-office-based-visits-not-included-for-2017-2019/4552/2 "2022-03-15T20:20:10Z")

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Hi Adam!

The AHRQ (Agency for Healthcare Research) discontinued offering variables that summarized the total number of visits and expenditures broken out by type of non-physician provider after 2016. Only [OBTOTVIS](https://meps.ipums.org/meps-action/variables/OBTOTVIS#description_section) (total visits to medical providers) and [OBPHVIS](https://meps.ipums.org/meps-action/variables/OBPHVIS#description_section) (total visits to physicians) continue to be provided. IPUMS has done preliminary work evaluating whether we can continue the person-level series of visit and expenditure variables by aggregating available event-level data. Things look promising. The MEPS team is hoping to deliver the event-level data later this spring, though it will take at least until the end of the year to fully reproduce these visit and expenditure variables.

However, you should be able to reconstruct these visit variables yourself from the event-level data we release. We’re happy to share Stata code for this. Please email us at ipums@umn.edu if this is something you’d be interested in.