by
Lauren Dubinsky, Senior Reporter | April 11, 2014
For the first time ever, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid published Medicare Part B payments to individual physicians and physician practices on Wednesday. Patients, reporters and health care providers now have access to the data set that reveals what those physicians earned from the program in 2012.
The release is the result of the Obama administration's belief that it will make the health care system "more transparent, affordable and accountable."
"Data transparency is a key aspect of transformation of the health care delivery system," Marilyn Tavenner, CMS administrator, said in a statement. "While there's more work ahead, this data release will help beneficiaries and consumers better understand how care is delivered through the Medicare program."
The data set includes payment breakdown of more than 880,000 physicians who collectively received $77 billion in payments. It details the physicians' names, office addresses, type of service, procedures performed, Medicare payment and submitted charges.
A slew of news organizations pounced on the data and broadcast stories about the nearly 4,000 physicians who received over one million dollars in payments. One of the most notable examples is an ophthalmologist based in Florida who earned about $21 million.
But many caution jumping to any conclusions so quickly.
The American Medical Association is not happy that CMS released the data. "We believe that the broad data dump today by CMS has significant shortcomings regarding the accuracy and value of the medical services rendered by physicians," Ardis Dee Hoven, president of the association, said in a statement. "Releasing the data without context will likely lead to inaccuracies, misinterpretations, false conclusions and other unintended consequences."
Originally, CMS was going to release the payment data on a case-by-case basis but on April 2, they wrote a letter to the AMA announcing the data will be released no later than April 9. The decision was made after receiving multiple FOIA requests seeking physician Medicare payment information.
"This information educates the public on how the agency operates the Medicare program, which is defined in statutory requirements, and how CMS pays physicians for services furnished to Medicare beneficiaries," Jonathan Blum, principal deputy administrator at CMS, wrote in the letter. "It will also allow a more informed debate about the appropriate Medicare payment for particular services."
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