Medical Design and Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Supplies and Components Index
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • MedTech Resources
    • Medtech Events in 2025
    • The 2024 Medtech Big 100
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Subscribe to Print Magazine
    • DeviceTalks
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Educational Assets
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Voices
    • Views
    • Video
  • 2025 Leadership
    • 2024 Winners
    • 2023 Winners
    • 2022 Winners
    • 2021 Winners
  • Women in Medtech
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe

Medical Association Won’t Stop Medicare Doc Data Release

April 8, 2014 By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Associated Press

The nation’s largest doctors’ group said Monday it won’t try to block Medicare’s release of billing records for 880,000 physicians, although it continues to oppose the government’s recent decision to open up the massive data trove.

An official of the American Medical Association told The Associated Press that the group won’t go to court ahead of Wednesday’s scheduled release. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the organization’s policies allow only certain designated representatives to make on-the-record comments.

Considered the mother lode of information on doctors, the Medicare claims database has been off-limits to the public for decades, blocked in the courts by physician groups who argue its release would do more harm than good.

Employers, insurers, media organizations and consumer groups interested in physician quality have been pressing the government to open up the files. Last week, the Obama administration announced it would do so.

Over time, public access to the data could change the way medicine is practiced in America. Combining the billing data with other sources of information, analysts would essentially be able to peer over the shoulders of individual physicians. Doctor ratings, now often based on the opinions of other physicians, would be driven by hard data, like statistics on baseball players. Consumers could become better educated about the doctors in their communities.

For example, if you’re about to undergo heart bypass, you could find out how many operations your surgeon did last year. Research shows that for many procedures, patients are better off going to a surgeon who performs them frequently.

The data could also be used to spot fraud, such as doctors billing for seeing more patients in a day than their office could reasonably be expected to care for.

Medical practice would have to change to accommodate big data. Insurers, acting as the intermediaries for employers and government programs, could use the Medicare numbers to demand that low-performing doctors measure up. If the data indicated a particular doctor’s diabetic patients were having unusually high rates of complications, that doctor might face questions.

Such scrutiny would probably accelerate trends toward large medical groups and doctors working as employees instead of in small practices.

“Over the past 30 years, the landscape has changed with respect to physician information that is available to the public,” Medicare deputy administrator Jonathan Blum said in a letter last week to the AMA. “As a result, the health care system is changing from a system dominated by dearth of usable, actionable information to one where care coordination and dramatically enhanced data availability … will power greater innovation, higher quality, increased productivity and lower costs.”

The AMA responds that unfiltered files may contain inaccuracies. It worries that the numbers may not look good for accomplished doctors who take on the most severely ill patients, or for practitioners working in economically depressed areas. The group is asking the government to allow doctors to review and correct their information prior to its release.

A “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,” said AMA president Ardis Dee Hoven.

The data has limitations. The administration is only releasing billings for 2012, so trend analysis won’t be possible. Also, it doesn’t include beneficiaries in Medicare Advantage plans offered through private insurers, more than 25 percent of seniors. And to protect patient privacy, data on doctors who treated 10 or fewer beneficiaries won’t be released.

“This is a very good change in policy,” said Robert Krughoff, president of Consumers’ Checkbook, which rates insurance plans. “It is now up to consumer organizations to be sure the information is used in valid ways, and to be strongly critical of reports that use invalid methods that are misleading or unfair to physicians.”

The AMA’s decision does not rule out last-minute legal action by other groups.

Related Articles Read More >

This is a screenshot of the remote robotic surgery technical guidelines appearing in the World Journal of Surgery.
New technical guidelines set to advance remote robotic surgery
An illustration of Embolization Inc.'s Nitinol Enhanced Device (NED).
This nitinol vascular embolization device has another shape memory material up its sleeve
A photo of Johnson & Johnson MedTech's Polyphonic-connected Monarch robotics-assisted bronchoscopy system in the lab.
J&J MedTech’s global head of digital wants to fund your AI project
July 2025 edition: The Surgical Robotics issue, featuring Capstan Medical, J&J and Zimmer Biomet
“mdo
EXPAND YOUR KNOWLEDGE AND STAY CONNECTED
Get the latest medical device business news, application and technology trends.

DeviceTalks Weekly

See More >

MDO Digital Edition

Digital Edition

Subscribe to Medical Design & Outsourcing. Bookmark, share and interact with the leading medical design engineering magazine today.

MEDTECH 100 INDEX

Medtech 100 logo
Market Summary > Current Price
The MedTech 100 is a financial index calculated using the BIG100 companies covered in Medical Design and Outsourcing.
DeviceTalks

DeviceTalks is a conversation among medical technology leaders. It's events, podcasts, webinars and one-on-one exchanges of ideas & insights.

DeviceTalks

New MedTech Resource

Medical Tubing

MassDevice

Mass Device

The Medical Device Business Journal. MassDevice is the leading medical device news business journal telling the stories of the devices that save lives.

Visit Website
MDO ad
Medical Design and Outsourcing
  • MassDevice
  • DeviceTalks
  • MedTech100 Index
  • Medical Tubing + Extrusion
  • Medical Design Sourcing
  • Drug Delivery Business News
  • Drug Discovery & Development
  • Pharmaceutical Processing World
  • R&D World
  • About Us/Contact
  • Advertise With Us
  • Subscribe to Print Magazine
  • Subscribe to our E-Newsletter
  • Listen to our Weekly Podcasts
  • Join our DeviceTalks Tuesdays Discussion

Copyright © 2025 WTWH Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of WTWH Media LLC. Site Map | Privacy Policy | RSS

Search Medical Design & Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Supplies and Components Index
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • MedTech Resources
    • Medtech Events in 2025
    • The 2024 Medtech Big 100
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Subscribe to Print Magazine
    • DeviceTalks
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Educational Assets
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Voices
    • Views
    • Video
  • 2025 Leadership
    • 2024 Winners
    • 2023 Winners
    • 2022 Winners
    • 2021 Winners
  • Women in Medtech
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe