TDWI doctors weigh in on health & healthcare

By David Harlow

First Posted at HealthBlawg on 5/19/2013

David Harlow, host of HealthBlawg

When CMS recently released hospital chargemaster and payment data for the 100 hospital codes most frequently billed to Medicare, there was much written and said about the significance of the data release.

Some found this to be significant; others (including your humble HealthBlawger), not so much.

Leonard Kish summed up and addressed the critiques of the value of the CMS open data, and others whose judgment I also respect found that the release was overall a good thing. Gilles Frydman, for one, in a listserv exchange, opined that the release was a net positive because it thrust the irrationality of hospital pricing into the public eye, and that “[i]f enough people get angry, a public push for more transparency will follow.”

I can accept the proposition that data will be valued differently by different parties. However, I want to throw something else into the mix: We are collectively trying to move away from fee-for-service medicine. As the saying goes: the future is already here; it just isn’t evenly distributed. Some are further down the path than others. I think that our time and effort is better spent on ensuring that value-based purchasing systems are up and running, rather than on improving the pricing transparency of FFS medicine. [click to continue…]

{ 0 comments }