Docs Have Mixed Reactions To CMS Data Dump
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
Some doctors see the CMS data release as positive step.
As Health IT Outcomes reported earlier, the CMS release of the first-ever publication of Medicare Part B payments to individual physicians and physician practices last month has elicited mixed responses. The data was released in response to transparency demands raised by the court case requiring the agency to provide public access to physician billing records.
According to the report, routine office visits accounted for the single largest share of Medicare physician billings in 2012, but amounted to just one one-seventh of the $77 billion paid by the government for physician services through the nation’s senior citizens healthcare program. While the AMA and other opponents warned that releasing the information could do more harm than good, and the data is being mined by fraud investigators, some doctors are actually welcoming the step.
Modern Healthcare points out doctors' responses to the release had much to do with their own circumstances, and some are even welcoming it. Dr. Bernd Wollschlaeger's Aventura Family Health Center is a paperless, patient-centered medical home practice he runs in Miami Beach with a physician assistant. Until 2012, he used to run a cash-only practice, but began to take Medicare at the request of his patients and also other third-party reimbursement from previously uninsured patients who were able to gain coverage under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Wollschlaeger believes that the release of this data is a long-overdue, positive development. The U.S. is entering an era of more accountability and transparency in all aspects of people's personal and professional lives and “medicine cannot be excluded,” he said.
“I do have a sense of resentment that there are physicians who use Medicare as a credit card,” he said. But, he added, “People should not throw all 880,000 physicians in one pot because 4,000 physicians bill more than $1 million each.”
Another physician, Dr. Thomas Yackel, associate professor and chief HIO at Oregon Health Science University, also believes that the data dump is a “a good thing” even if the raw data in itself is not that useful at first glance. The challenge he said is to use the data to begin to determine true costs.
“Cost is not just difficult for the public to determine, it's often difficult to determine from inside the organization,” Yackel said. “How much does it cost? Not how much does the patient pay or what do we charge? But how many resources do we consume when we run this test? Getting that data is very difficult.”