WASHINGTON (AP) - Picking a specialist for a delicate medical procedure like a heart bypass could get a lot easier in the not-too-distant future.
The government announced Monday that Medicare will finally allow its extensive claims database to be used by employers, insurance companies and consumer groups to produce report cards on local doctors and hospitals.
By analyzing masses of billing records, experts can glean such critical information as how often a doctor has performed a particular procedure and get a general sense of problems such as preventable complications.
Doctors will be individually identifiable through the Medicare files, but personal data on their patients will remain confidential. Compiled in an easily understood format and released to the public, medical report cards could become a powerful tool for promoting quality care.
"There is tremendous variation in how well doctors do, and most of us as patients don't know that. We make our choices blind," said David Lansky, president of the Pacific Business Group on Health. "This is the beginning of a process to give us the information to make informed decisions." His nonprofit represents 50 large employers that provide coverage for more than 3 million people.
Medicare acting administrator Marilyn Tavenner called the new policy "a giant step forward in making our health care system more transparent and promoting increased competition, accountability, quality and lower costs."
Early efforts to rate physicians using limited private insurance data have thus far focused on primary care doctors, but Medicare's rich information could provide the numbers to start rating specialists as well, Lansky said. Consumers will see the first performance reports by late 2012, said a Medicare spokesman.
Medicare officials say they expect nonprofit research groups in California, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Massachusetts and other states to jump at the chance to use the data. With 47 million beneficiaries and virtually every doctor and hospital in the country participating, Medicare's database is considered the mother lode of health care information.
Tapping it has largely been forbidden because of a decades-old court ruling that releasing the information would violate the privacy of doctors. Insurance companies tried to fill the gap using their own claims data, but their files are nowhere near as comprehensive as Medicare's
Doctors groups that fought for years to prevent release of the Medicare data, have lately shifted to putting conditions on its use.
For example, Medicare's rule gives individual providers the right to see their information before it is publicly released, and 60 days to challenge it.
The American Medical Association had previously argued that such data could be misleading to untrained consumers. For example, a surgeon who has lots of patients who develop complications may actually be a top practitioner who takes cases that others less skilled would turn away.
Medicare says it will screen the analytical methods of groups that are requesting access to the data. The organizations will have to meet other qualifications, such as having access to claims data of their own. And they will have to pay for access to the Medicare files.