Appendix Table 2.

Inclusion of Rx Utilization Events Redistributes Back Pain Episodes-of-Care groups.

Only Office-Based, OutPatient, and ER visit events, Does NOT include their Rx events.		Office-based, Outpatient, and ER visit eventsand includestheir Rx events
		A1	A2	B1	B2	C	D
A1) Single BP Period - Uncensored Patterns: OOOXO, OOXOO, OXOOO	(n = 3154)	89%		3%	2%	3%	3%
A2) Single BP Period – Censored Patterns: OOOOX, XOOOO	(n = 1596)		89%		3%	2%	6%
B1) Two contiguous BP Periods - Uncensored<br1>Patterns: OXXOO, OOXXO	(n = 521)			82%		16%	3%
B2) Two contiguous BP Periods - Censored Patterns: XXOOO, OOOXX	(n = 611)				88%	7%	5%
C) Three or more contiguous BP Periods Patterns: OOXXX, OXXXO, XXXOO, OXXXX, XXXXO, XXXXX	(n = 1066)					98%	2%
D) Multiple, recurrent BP Periods Patterns: OOXOX, OXOOX, OXOXO, OXOXX, OXXOX, XOOOX, XOOXO, XOOXX, XOXOO, XOXOX, XOXXO, XOXXX, XXOOX, XXOXO, XXOXX, XXXOX.	(n = 1049)					16%	84%
TOTAL of BackPain cases pooled across MEPS Panels 10-through-5 Ambulatory Utilization Events files (N = 7,992a)

Note: Table 5 demonstrates how the inclusion of Rx events redistributes individuals with back pain across the 6-category episodes-of-care schema, pooling across all of the MEPS panels 10-through-5. Reading Row 1 as example, when considering only their office-based, outpatient, and ER events, 3,154 of MEPS respondents in Panels 10-through-5 are classified as A1 (single back pain round, uncensored). When their Rx events are also included, approximately 89% remain classified as A1, whereas 11% of A1“single episode” MEPS respondents are reclassified as having longer (B,C) or recurrent (D) episodes-of-care pattern.

^aFor purpose of constructing this demonstration table, N=7,992 are those MEPS respondents who have Rx back pain events in addition to Office-based, Outpatient, or ER events (Pooled across MEPS Panels 10-through-5, approximately 692 individuals have only Rx back pain events but no other utilization events and therefore they are not represented in this particular table).