National Business Group on Health Applauds CMS Final Rule Giving Individuals Information to Make Better Health Care Choices

WASHINGTON, Dec. 5, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Business Group on Health today applauded a final rule issued by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services that gives individuals more information to help choose their physicians.  The Business Group calls today's action a giant step forward in efforts to make the cost and quality of health care more transparent and to promote competition.  

The rule, announced today, gives qualified organizations, including employers and consumer groups, access to data that can help them identify high quality health care providers or create online tools to help consumers make educated health care choices.  The final rule also makes this data less costly for qualified entities, gives qualified organizations more flexibility in their use of Medicare data to create performance reports for consumers, and extends the time period for health care providers to confidentially review and appeal performance reports before they become public. 

Helen Darling, President and CEO of the National Business Group on Health, commented:  "CMS' action adds a much needed element to our efforts to help make health care in the United State more effective and efficient.  CMS will make available the information on how much it pays physicians and the services they provide to beneficiaries to qualified entities for public reporting.  The rule announced today will enable widespread public access to the data, ample flexibility on useful ways to measure and report the data and the ability to report on individual physician performance.  At the same time, the CMS rule protects beneficiary privacy and gives physicians an opportunity to identify and correct erroneous data before CMS releases them." 

"Medicare will finally unleash the vast trove of information it has on physicians in a timely way so that millions of patients can better assess the quality and value of the health care they receive and we can all take strides toward better quality, better value care for all.  Physicians, too, can benefit in knowing how they compare with their peers," concluded Darling.

About the National Business Group on Health

The National Business Group on Health is the nation's only non-profit organization devoted exclusively to representing large employers' perspective on national health policy issues and providing practical solutions to its members' most important health care problems. The Business Group helps drive today's health agenda while promoting ideas for controlling health care costs, improving patient safety and quality of care and sharing best practices in health benefits management with senior benefits, HR professionals, and medical directors from leading corporations.  For more information, visit www.businessgrouphealth.org.

SOURCE National Business Group on Health