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 These data range from previously unpublished statistics on Medicare spending, utilization, and quality at the state, hospital referral region, and county level, to detailed information on the quality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...