Medicare Data Becoming Available for Preparing Doctor Report Cards

by James Lewis

JIm is a Virginia injury attorney who handles car accidents, medical malpractice, FELA, wrongful death, etc.

12/7/2011
James Lewis
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Medicare Data Becoming Available for Preparing Doctor Report Cards

Choosing a doctor or surgeon can be a crapshoot. Patients often have little or no information on physicians' experience or history of successful treatments, medical mistakes or malpractice claims. This puts people needing health care services ranging from long-term care for chronic conditions like diabetes to back surgery at risk for suffering life-threatening and debilitating complications from prescribing errors, misdiagnoses, medical negligence and surgical errors.

A small step toward making patients better informed about the doctors and surgeons to whom they entrust their health and lives was taken earlier in 2011 when federal officials eased restrictions on the public's access to the National Practitioner Data Bank, which records malpractice actions. Now, a change in federal laws and regulations will give patients much more complete information on doctors that was previously tightly held by Medicare.

On December 5, 2011, acting under a requirement of the Affordable Health Care Act, the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services announced the publication of a final rule that permits employers and consumer groups to comb the Medicare provider database for information on the number of times a doctor or surgeon has performed a procedure and how often those physicians' patients have experienced preventable errors. No patient information will be released, and the agency has called for stiff penalties for any group that misuses the Medicare data or handles records in ways that allow individual patients to be identified.

As noted in an Associated Press report, the Medicare database includes billing records for "47 million beneficiaries and nearly every doctor and hospital in the country." CMS Acting Administrator Marilyn Tavenner was not exaggerating, then, when she told the press. "This is a giant step forward in making our health care system more transparent and promoting increased competition, accountability, quality and lower costs."

Information on doctors is essential for patients looking to protect themselves from the harms caused by medical malpractice. The organizatins given access to the Medicare database are expected to begin producing doctor report cards by late 2012. The goal is to provide patients easily understandable grades they can review when they have to choose a doctor or surgeon.

Having represented many victims of medical mistakes and surgical errors, I applaud CMS for sharing its information. I also look forward to the time when patients no longer must select health care providers blindly.

EJL

Category: Medical Malpractice/Doctor Mistakes

Labels: doctor report cards health care hospitals Lewis medical malpractice medical mistakes Medicare patients physicians surgeons surgeries surgical errors Virginia personal injury attorney

About the Editors: Shapiro, Lewis & Appleton is a Virginia injury law firm whose attorneys focus on personal injury and accident law and have extensive experience handling medical malpractice and doctor mistake cases. Please take a few moments to review our medical malpractice case results. We have offices in Virginia Beach and Hampton, VA, but we're ready to come to you anywhere in Virginia, including Norfolk, Portsmouth, Chesapeake, Newport News and Suffolk, VA, if you've been seriously hurt by the carelessness of a doctor, surgeon, nurse or pharmacist.

Rick Shapiro and James Lewis have been recognized as among the Best Lawyers in America since 2008. Also, Rick and Jim have been named Virginia Super Lawyers for Personal Injury Law since 2010. Fewer than 5 percent of lawyers are chosen for this professional honor.

Members of our VA personal injury law firm have also been selected by the National Million Dollar Advocates Forum since 2009. In addition, we were the first injury law firm in Virginia to join Primerus, a select group of highly ethical and respected law firms. Our VA medical malpractice firm has the highest rating of AV from Martindale-Hubbell, a national lawyer ranking organization, which means we have a reputation for preeminent legal skill.

We offer free special reports on the Top 10 Tips from a Medical Malpractice Insider and the top five surgical errors you must know about.

While not every injury case meets our criteria, we offer free initial confidential injury case consultation, so call us toll free at (800) 752-0042. If you cannot get through due to high call volume, please leave a voicemail so we can return your call.

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