PAY2 indicates the expected secondary payer (Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, etc.). To ensure uniformity of coding across data sources, PAY2 combines detailed categories in the more general groups. For example,

• Medicare includes both fee-for-service and managed care Medicare patients.
• Medicaid includes both fee-for-service and managed care Medicaid patients.
• Private insurance (PAY2 = 3) includes Blue Cross, commercial carriers, and private HMOs and PPOs.
• Other (PAY2 = 6) includes Worker's Compensation, CHAMPUS, CHAMPVA, Title V, and other government programs.

In the 1988-1997 data, the data element PAY2_N provides more detailed categories for private insurance and other payers. This data element is discontinued beginning in the 1998 data because of the difficulty of coding the information uniformly across States.

The HCUP data element PAY2_X retains the expected primary payer as provided by the data source.

Because the coding of expected primary and secondary payer is the same, information on the coding of PAY2 is available under the note for expected primary payer (PAY1).