I am working with Medicare claims data and am trying to merge two datasets (TRIGGERS and CLAIMS). TRIGGERS has the variables bene_id, claim_id and date. In TRIGGERS there is one claim (observation) per bene_id. CLAIMS has bene_id, claim_id, date and diagnostic codes. In CLAIMS, each bene_id may have multiple claims (multiple observations). I want to create a new dataset, LOOKBACK, that keeps only the bene_ids that are in both TRIGGERS and CLAIMS and keeps multiple claims (observations) for every bene_id. I expected the following code to work, but I seemed to lose the claim from TRIGGER. Any suggestions?
proc sort data = out.triggers; by bene_id; run;
proc sort data = work.claims; by bene_id; run;
data lookback;
merge out.triggers (in=a) work.claims (in=b);
by bene_id; if a and b;
run;
Your final data set can only have one variable named CLAIM_ID. If it appears in both data sets and you want both, this is one possible change to handle it:
merge out.triggers (in=a rename=(claim_id=trigger_claim_id)) work.claims (in=b);
What does the log say? If none of these match you should be getting zero obs due to the "if a and b;" Have you compared the values for bene_id in both data sets to make sure they have any overlap at all?
There is overlap. This is the log message:
NOTE: There were 711292 observations read from the data set TRIGGERS.
NOTE: There were 86214334 observations read from the data set CLAIMS.
NOTE: The data set WORK.LOOKBACK has 23448038 observations and 17 variables.
But, when I look at the data, the date from the TRIGGER observation has been lost.
Your final data set can only have one variable named CLAIM_ID. If it appears in both data sets and you want both, this is one possible change to handle it:
merge out.triggers (in=a rename=(claim_id=trigger_claim_id)) work.claims (in=b);
That did it! Thank you!
Are you ready for the spotlight? We're accepting content ideas for SAS Innovate 2025 to be held May 6-9 in Orlando, FL. The call is open until September 25. Read more here about why you should contribute and what is in it for you!
Learn how use the CAT functions in SAS to join values from multiple variables into a single value.
Find more tutorials on the SAS Users YouTube channel.