Dive Brief:
- CMS has released quality performance scores for the first time for individual physicians who volunteered to provide their data.
- The scores appear on CMS' Physician Compare website, and rate physicians on factors including routine screenings, follow-up care, monitoring of patients for healthy weight, and reviewing of patient medications.
- About six in 10 doctors' scores are shown. Those who were not included either did not participate, or may have had difficulty with the data submission process.
Dive Insight:
While the publishing of physician scores is an effort by CMS to provide transparency for healthcare consumers, the American Medical Association argues because it is incomplete, it actually muddies the waters.
Some physicians attempted to volunteer their data to CMS but encountered “inaccuracies and difficulties” and received little help from CMS, AMA president Dr. Steven Stack says, arguing that may be interpreted negatively by patients concerned not to find their physicians listed.
“The AMA is a strong supporter of transparency, but today's action goes in the opposite direction—offering the public information that will lead consumers to draw faulty inferences about the quality of care that an individual physician or group provides,” Stack said in a prepared statement.
Physicians will face a penalty in 2016 if they opt out, and CMS is working with medical societies to iron out the reporting process, Modern Healthcare reports.