CMS pushes forward on quality metrics for physicians
April 24, 2015
As complex as it is to get pricing information about medical procedures (did you want the chargemaster price? the in-network price? the price including the facility fee?), pricing data has becoming increasingly available to consumers over the last several years. Quality information, however, remains elusive. In large part, this lack of information is because even within the medical community, physicians disagree on how to measure quality. A cynic might add that even if they did agree, physicians generally would not want that information to be made public. On this front, CMS has laid out five principles regarding quality measurement among physicians. Two of them are: "Feedback and data drives rapid cycle quality improvement. Public reporting provides meaningful, transparent, and actionable information."
Both of these principles are important. Without feedback, people have a much harder time figuring out how to improve. Without public reporting of quality information, consumers will have a hard time meaningfully selecting a physician. Unfortunately, it will take years to see if CMS is able to get the medical community to agree on meaningful measures to track and disclose -- the announcement itself emphasized that the vision is for the "long-term," and that the challenges are expected to span "the next several years." Nevertheless, the public affirmation of these principles within the practice of medicine is encouraging.