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The recent release of billing information by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services was accompanied by a spurious headline on the cms.gov website: "Historic release of data gives consumers unprecedented transparency on the medical services physicians provide and how much they are paid."
Have you downloaded the Excel spreadsheets online? There are megafiles of megabytes. The data lack all context and are confusing. What does it all mean? How are patients supposed to make decisions based on the data (if at all)? Do you want a doctor with a lot of Medicare billing or very little? As a cognitive clinic "E&M"-oriented cardiologist, I perform very few procedures. So my billings are in a middle range (I guess). If one of my patients were to carry out a search and discuss with me, I think that I would be within my professional rights to quote a recent secretary of state and ask, "What difference does it make?"
Perhaps that is where the government gets it wrong. Are there high-end outliers? Sure, and if the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services wants to carry out an audit, it can. But the publication of these data on a website does nothing to improve transparency. They may create front page headline material for newspapers, but on a day-to-day basis, patients just want to have a physician with whom they can talk, a physician who advocates for them, a physician who is skilled and thoughtful and careful. Medicare billing? Not on anyone’s Top Ten list.
Next stop by the government? The sunshine law release of information. We might as well repeat this column when that happens.
Dr. Hauptman is professor of internal medicine and assistant dean of clinical-translational research at Saint Louis University and director of heart failure at Saint Louis University Hospital. He currently serves as an associate editor for Circulation: Heart Failure and blogs while staring out his office window at the Arch.
The recent release of billing information by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services was accompanied by a spurious headline on the cms.gov website: "Historic release of data gives consumers unprecedented transparency on the medical services physicians provide and how much they are paid."
Have you downloaded the Excel spreadsheets online? There are megafiles of megabytes. The data lack all context and are confusing. What does it all mean? How are patients supposed to make decisions based on the data (if at all)? Do you want a doctor with a lot of Medicare billing or very little? As a cognitive clinic "E&M"-oriented cardiologist, I perform very few procedures. So my billings are in a middle range (I guess). If one of my patients were to carry out a search and discuss with me, I think that I would be within my professional rights to quote a recent secretary of state and ask, "What difference does it make?"
Perhaps that is where the government gets it wrong. Are there high-end outliers? Sure, and if the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services wants to carry out an audit, it can. But the publication of these data on a website does nothing to improve transparency. They may create front page headline material for newspapers, but on a day-to-day basis, patients just want to have a physician with whom they can talk, a physician who advocates for them, a physician who is skilled and thoughtful and careful. Medicare billing? Not on anyone’s Top Ten list.
Next stop by the government? The sunshine law release of information. We might as well repeat this column when that happens.
Dr. Hauptman is professor of internal medicine and assistant dean of clinical-translational research at Saint Louis University and director of heart failure at Saint Louis University Hospital. He currently serves as an associate editor for Circulation: Heart Failure and blogs while staring out his office window at the Arch.
The recent release of billing information by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services was accompanied by a spurious headline on the cms.gov website: "Historic release of data gives consumers unprecedented transparency on the medical services physicians provide and how much they are paid."
Have you downloaded the Excel spreadsheets online? There are megafiles of megabytes. The data lack all context and are confusing. What does it all mean? How are patients supposed to make decisions based on the data (if at all)? Do you want a doctor with a lot of Medicare billing or very little? As a cognitive clinic "E&M"-oriented cardiologist, I perform very few procedures. So my billings are in a middle range (I guess). If one of my patients were to carry out a search and discuss with me, I think that I would be within my professional rights to quote a recent secretary of state and ask, "What difference does it make?"
Perhaps that is where the government gets it wrong. Are there high-end outliers? Sure, and if the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services wants to carry out an audit, it can. But the publication of these data on a website does nothing to improve transparency. They may create front page headline material for newspapers, but on a day-to-day basis, patients just want to have a physician with whom they can talk, a physician who advocates for them, a physician who is skilled and thoughtful and careful. Medicare billing? Not on anyone’s Top Ten list.
Next stop by the government? The sunshine law release of information. We might as well repeat this column when that happens.
Dr. Hauptman is professor of internal medicine and assistant dean of clinical-translational research at Saint Louis University and director of heart failure at Saint Louis University Hospital. He currently serves as an associate editor for Circulation: Heart Failure and blogs while staring out his office window at the Arch.
