Should You Use Beta-MAX for Medicaid Research?

In 2010, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services created the Beta-MAX data system to improve the timeliness of Medicaid Analytic Extract (MAX) data while retaining many of the benefits of MAX data for research. This report compares Beta-MAX data with MAX data for 2009 for 32 states with available data. The report updates the Beta-MAX pilot study released in 2010, which assessed the reliability of Beta-MAX data based on data for six states. Overall Beta-MAX data were generally consistent with MAX data on estimates of key enrollee populations, expenditures, and service utilization. Some small differences between the two files resulted from Beta-MAX data that included only four quarters of other (OT) claims files.