CMS To Publicly Release Medicare Physician Payment Data April 3, 2014 AMA, Medicare, News AMA, Medicare, CMS, Medicare physician payment data 0 On April 2, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that it will release Medicare physician payment data by April 9, 2014. The data will include information on payments made under Medicare Part B in 2012 to all providers who participated. Specifically, the data will include: Physicians' names and addresses Number of patients treated Summaries of the services provided The amount providers were paid for the services The data will not include any patient information. Furthermore, CMS will not release any information on providers with fewer than 11 patients who are Medicare beneficiaries. In total, the data will list details of more than $77 billion in Medicare payments to more than 880,000 providers for about 6,000 different procedures and services. Feedback from Medical Community Physicians have expressed concern that the data could unfairly reflect poorly on some providers, such as those practicing in low-income areas where patients experience negative outcomes because they cannot afford the cost of medication or copayments or do not complete basic follow-up care. In such instances, the data might negatively portray providers who are providing adequate care, physicians say. The American Medical Association in response to an April 2 letter from Blum again expressed its opposition to the data release. In a statement on Tuesday, AMA said "that CMS' broad approach to releasing physician payment data will mislead the public into making inappropriate and potentially harmful treatment decisions and will result in unwarranted bias against physicians that can destroy careers." The group suggested that CMS allow physicians to review and correct the data before its release. Click here to view the AMA statement on the Medicare Data Release. Comments are closed.
