“We’re assuming patients are going to use this to inform their decision. And we’re assuming they are going to understand and find value in the five metrics they are going to see. That’s a lot of assumptions.”
other factors like word of mouth from family and friends. Read the full study online, http://bit .ly/1h6jmKH.
The good news, says TMA Council on Health Care Quality member Ronald S. Walters, MD, is physicians have some control over the quality data published because they are the ones reporting it directly to CMS. The bad news, says the Houston oncologist, is Physician Com- pare remains error-ridden, “and that has to be worked out, or there’s going to be no trust behind the quality data that are being added.”
& White Clinic, on
www.medicare.gov/ physiciancompare. “I’m not sure that’s the way patients think” when they want to find their doc- tor or switch to a new one, said Dr. Berry, chief quality officer at Baylor Scott & White Health Central Texas Division. Nor is she confident patients will understand the stars and percentage scores, which represent Scott & White’s performance on quality measures, such as controlling blood sugar levels and blood pressure in patients with diabetes, that now adorn her practice’s name. “We are assuming patients are going to go to the website. We’re assuming they can figure out how to navigate it. We’re assuming patients are going to use this to inform their decision. And we’re assuming they are going to understand and find value in the five metrics they are going to see. That’s a lot of assump- tions,” she said. In February, Medicare for the first time added the quality data to Physi- cian Compare with the goal of helping patients make informed health care choices. The addition comes at a time of
30 TEXAS MEDICINE June 2014
heightened interest in transparency, and this year the website includes quality in- formation for certain large group prac- tices and accountable care organizations (ACOs). The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) plans to phase in more measures and make quality data public for all Medicare physicians in the coming years. The Texas Medical Association and physicians like Dr. Berry generally sup- port transparency to help improve pa- tients’ quality of care. But TMA and the American Medical Association continue to advocate for safeguards that ensure any physician data published to that end are useful and accurate. That could prove more important as patients in- creasingly use rating sites like Physician Compare to choose their doctors. In a University of Michigan Medical School survey published in the February 2014 issue of the Journal of the American Med- ical Association (JAMA), 59 percent of respondents found online physician rat- ing sites to be “somewhat important” or
“very important” when choosing a physi- cian, but they still relied more heavily on
Quality data go public CMS did not respond to Texas Medicine interview requests. In a February press statement, CMS Chief Medical Officer and Deputy Administrator for Innova- tion and Quality Patrick Conway, MD, said, “Offering a strong set of meaning- ful quality measures on the site will ul- timately help consumers make decisions, and it will encourage quality improve- ment among the clinician community, who shares CMS’s strong commitment to the best possible patient care.” Physician Compare, created by the 2010 Affordable Care Act, already in- cluded basic demographic informa- tion on Medicare physicians, including names, addresses, board certification, and group practice and hospital affili- ations. The public website also noted physicians’ participation in three federal quality improvement programs: PQRS and the electronic prescribing (eRx) and electronic health record (EHR) incentive programs. CMS redesigned the website in 2013 in anticipation of posting the first set of physician quality data this year. The five quality measures added for large groups and ACOs include:
• Controlling blood sugar levels in pa- tients with diabetes,
• Controlling blood pressure in patients with diabetes,
• Prescribing aspirin to patients with diabetes and heart disease,
• Screening diabetic patients for tobac- co use, and
• Prescribing medicine to improve the
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