Medicare Exam Of Doctors
Today is the first day that Medicare will officially begin accepting requests from the public (PDF) under the Freedom of Information Act for doctors’ personally identifiable payment information. The change comes just as drug companies and devicemakers are preparing to reveal payments to doctors, which is in addition to the growing transparency efforts at CMS’ Physician Compare site.
The release of Medicare payment data to doctors is intended to tell the public how many patients an individual doctor treats, and what the government paid for the care—information that could shed light on physicians’ competence in certain procedures as well as show patterns of fraud and overuse.
For the past 35 years, CMS officials have considered it a violation of physicians’ right to privacy to tell the public how much Medicare pays individual doctors. But a federal judge in Florida ruled last year that doctors’ privacy rights no longer trumped the public interest in making the data public. The decision followed the publication of news stories that used Medicare billing data to pinpoint physicians doing suspiciously high levels of Medicare work.
Today is the first day that Medicare will officially begin accepting requests from the public (PDF) under the Freedom of Information Act for doctors’ personally identifiable payment information. The change comes just as drug companies and devicemakers are preparing to reveal payments to doctors, which is in addition to the growing transparency efforts at CMS’ Physician Compare site.
Medicare doctors are accustomed to wearing the white coats and diagnosing others’ problems. But in coming months they may feel more like they’re the ones wearing backless hospital gowns, as the federal government reveals previously undisclosed information about doctors’ finances and performance. Today is the first day that Medicare […]
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