Date:         Fri, 11 Jan 2002 16:42:38 -0500
Reply-To:     "Carriere, Ron" <rcarriere@MEDNET.UCLA.EDU>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Carriere, Ron" <rcarriere@MEDNET.UCLA.EDU>
Subject:      Help w Table lookup w SAS formats

Each week we process a SAS file that has from 250,000 to 600,000 records.
The file has a variable that represents the primary payor for that record,
and a date of service.
We have a SAS program that maps these records to a set of 14 payor
groupings, each of which gets assigned to a variable GROUPA--GROUPN.   The
way that we currently do that is to use a set of 14 SAS formats,  $GROUPA--
$GROUPN and PUT statements.

GROUPA = PUT(PAYOR,$GROUPA.);

and so on.
The table that is being mapped by this process looks like this:

PAYOR       GROUPA   GROUPB    GROUPC  ....  GROUPN
AAA  GG GG   RR  C
BBB  CC BB   XX  K

and so on for upwards of 5,000 lines.

Currently new mappings are added to the table by adding new PAYOR codes,
but beginning this year we are going to an approach that will permit
multiple mappings of the same payor based upon date.  So we might have, for
instance.

PAYOR       GROUPA   GROUPB    GROUPC  .... GROUPN   Effective Date

AAA  GG GG   RR  C   19900101
BBB  CC BB   XX  K   19900101

BBB  GG BB   XX  A   20000402

Payor BBB would have GROUPN = A for dates on or after 20000402 and K for
dates from 19900101-20000401.
These additions and changes will occur for different payors on any date, so
that we can't conceptualize this as a set of yearly tables or monthly ,
each in the format of the original table.

We are thinking of abandoning our current approach and moving to a solution
where we merge the data from SAS file to the table file with some
convoluted brute force programming to handle the date ranges, perhaps using
COBOL or another language, but we would be greatful for any suggestions
which use SAS and involve fewer headaches.

Thanks in advance,

Ron Carriere
UCLA Medical Center