WASHINGTON -- The Medicare program is inching toward making individual physician payments publicly available, following a key court case and a recent shift toward greater transparency.
The Obama administration is soliciting feedback on what privacy concerns it should have about making the physician compensation from Medicare public,
The agency doesn't want to reveal patient-identifiable information, but acknowledges the role greater transparency can play in healthcare financing.
"CMS recognizes the potential for transforming the healthcare system that our data provides," . "By making our charge information public, we can help promote initiatives that can reduce costs and improve quality. This is only the latest step CMS is taking to increase transparency, but it won't be the last."
Specifically, CMS is asking for feedback in three areas:
- How to properly weigh the balance between a provider's potential privacy interest and the public interest in disclosure of Medicare payment information
- What policies CMS should consider with respect to disclosure of individual physician payment data, especially to prevent the release of any health information on any Medicare beneficiary
- What form any potential data release might take, such as line-item claim details or aggregated data at the individual physician level
The request for public comment comes 2 months after a federal court overturned a more than 30-year-old injunction preventing the release of information detailing what Medicare pays individual doctors.
On May 31, U.S. District Court Judge Marcia Morales Howard of Jacksonville, Fla., ruled it "is detrimental to the public interest" to maintain a 1979 permanent injunction, which held that certain individually identifying information in Medicare wasn't subject to federal open records laws.
In the case, the Florida Medical Association sued the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (now known as the Department of Health and Human Services), claiming the release of information, such as what each doctor was paid by Medicare, would be an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.
"In light of this recent legal development and our ongoing commitment to greater transparency in the healthcare system, CMS seeks public input on the most appropriate policies with respect to disclosure of individual physician payment data," the agency said.
The transparency comment referred to a recent spat of public-data releases by CMS on hospital charge data, following mass media attention on the topic.
In May, CMS released previously unpublished hospital charges for the 100 most common inpatient treatments at more than 3,000 hospitals nationwide in 2011. Jonathan Blum, PhD, acting principal deputy administrator at CMS, said at the time that physician payments could soon follow.
In June, the agency released the average estimated submitted charges for 30 types of hospital outpatient procedures such as clinic visits, echocardiograms, and endoscopies.
"Today's announcements are only the latest of several efforts that demonstrate this Administration's and this agency's commitment to making healthcare more transparent," according to CMS.