In May of this year, CMS
released information on the average charges for the one hundred most
common inpatient services at more than 3,000 hospitals nationwide. The
following month, the Agency published average charges for 30 outpatient
procedures. Are average charges—or payments—for physicians’
professional services next?
CMS would like to make
physician payment data available, being strongly committed to greater
data transparency in general. Accordingly, it has published a request for public comments,
in which it noted that “Since 2010, CMS has released an unprecedented
amount of aggregated data in machine-readable form. These data range
from previously unpublished statistics on Medicare spending,
utilization, and quality at the state, hospital referral region, and
county level, to detailed information on the quality performance of
hospitals, nursing homes, and other providers.” The questions on which
CMS seeks comments are the following:
(1) whether physicians have a privacy
interest in information concerning payments they receive...
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