Does the Relationship of the Proxy to the Target Person Affect the Concordance between Survey Reports and Medicare Claims Measures of Health Services Use?

<bold>Objectives: </bold>To compare concordance of survey reports of health service use versus claims data between self respondents and spousal and nonspousal relative proxies.<bold>Data Sources: </bold>1995-2010 data from the Survey on Assets and Health Dynamics among the Oldest Old and 1993-2010 Medicare claims for 3,229 individuals (13,488 person-years).<bold>Study Design: </bold>Regression models with individual fixed effects were estimated for discordance of any hospitalizations and outpatient surgery and for the numbers of under- and over-reported physician visits.<bold>Principal Findings: </bold>Spousal proxies were similar to self respondents on discordance. Nonspousal proxies, particularly daughters/daughters-in-law and sons/sons-in-law, had less discordance, mainly due to reduced under-reporting.<bold>Conclusions: </bold>Survey reports of health services use from nonspousal relatives are more consistent with Medicare claims than spousal proxies and self respondents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]