The enhancement has entailed matching patients included in the SEER cancer registry data with two different data resources at CMS ? the Medicare claims for health care provided to fee-for-service beneficiaries and the Medicare Health Outcomes Survey, which contains survey data related to the health-related quality of life for Medicare HMO enrollees. Augmenting the SEER data with these additional data sources has significantly expanded the range of research projects that can be performed and has resulted in greater understanding of the types and quality of care provided to elderly cancer patients. NCI currently has a contract with Fu Associates to conduct linkage activities and provide programming support for the SEER-Medicare and SEER-MHOS data sets. The SEER-MHOS linkage was updated in 2015 and the SEER-Medicare linkage will be updated during 2016.
