The New York Times stated in a recent editorial that employers and Medicare beneficiaries should have access to information that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid keep on who the best doctors are at the most affordable rates, and reported that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) refuses to release the data.
From the article (free registration required):
The conflicting perspectives were described by Robert Pear in yesterday’s Times. The Business Roundtable, which represents 160 large companies, asked Medicare to release data on payments to individual physicians to help them determine which doctors achieved the best results —performing the most knee operations with the fewest complications and deaths, for example — and how the average cost per case differs from doctor to doctor.
Releasing the information would help insurance plans and employers decide which doctors to include in their networks. Properly scrubbed and evaluated, the information could also help patients choose their doctors.
The NYT said HHS is relying on an outdated privacy law court decision. Medical News Today, citing a Kaiser Network report, revealed that a group of health insurance providers called the Business Roundtable recently requested and was refused information about provider quality.