Since the MedicareProvNum is the primary key for the database, the ACMI software goes directly to the two provider facilities included and reads only 5419 records. Excluding records with no procedure coded ( SurgNum equal zero) leaves only 2937 records in the report.
ACMI sorts the 2937 records. Since the user is requesting only the top 3 procedures for each provider facility, 533 records are shown in this report.
The user may ask for any number of top (e.g., 10, 25, 73 or 100) for each hospital. For lack of space here, the top 3 were requested. The user may request that the sort be based on: NUMBER - the greatest number of cases; MEAN - cases with the highest average costs; TOTAL_K* - cases with the highest total costs in thousands; and S.D. - cases with the highest variation among the individual cases.