It’s an interesting developing phenomenon that’s been percolating for several years – that is, rating doctors. There has been a smattering of articles about this in the past month in various pubs.
I think the time has come –- are you all ready to “rate” your surgeon? Do you think you can do a better job rating your doctor’s service than Zagat’s (yes, that’s the restaurant guide!). I do. Way better.
We will provide a valuable service by carefully creating a methodology to rate spine surgeons near and far. With the collective knowledge of this community, we can come up with a rating system that is fair, comprehensive and helpful to patients.
Well, wuddayathink? If I had a nickel for every time someone asked about a surgeon in anywhere USA…I’d have a lot of nickels!
See the article below and in the article library.
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N.Y. Attorney General Says Cigna To Alter Doctor-Ranking Program
New York Sets Plan With Cigna Aiming To Set Standard
By VANESSA FUHRMANS
October 30, 2007; Page D3
New York's attorney general announced a first-of-its-kind agreement with Cigna Corp. that may help to establish an industry standard for the doctor-rating systems that health insurers increasingly use to guide consumers.
The deal stems from Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's probe of the way health plans measure -- and publicly disclose -- how doctors rate in terms of quality of care and cost efficiency. Aetna Inc. said it welcomes working with the attorney general on a similar deal, while UnitedHealth Group Inc. and WellPoint Inc.'s Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield said they also are continuing talks.
More insurers and their employer clients are using rating programs to encourage consumers, often through financial incentives, to pick doctors whom insurers rate more highly.
UnitedHealth, for instance, gives doctors and hospitals that follow certain care guidelines and are cost-efficient a "UnitedHealth Premium" designation. Aetna includes top-performing specialists in its "Aexcel" network. Some employers have begun charging workers more if they see doctors who don't earn such labels.
But medical groups and regulators in some states say that many of these programs are confusing and may steer patients to the cheapest, rather than best, doctors. Already the practice has sparked a lawsuit by some Connecticut doctors asking a state Superior Court judge to halt UnitedHealth's and Cigna's rating systems, citing breach of contract and unfair trade practices, among other things.
One of the biggest critics recently has been Mr. Cuomo, whose office has sent letters to Cigna, Aetna, UnitedHealth, Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield and other health plans asking them to justify their methodologies and warning some not to launch the programs in New York without approval.
But at a signing ceremony yesterday, Mr. Cuomo touted the agreement with Cigna as a template for the rest of the industry to follow nationally in ranking doctors, and said his office has asked other insurers to sign on.
Under the terms, Cigna will use established national standards to measure physicians' quality of care; fully disclose how the rankings are designed, and clearly identify the degree to which cost is used to determine a performance score. It will also appoint a "national standard-setting organization" to monitor the ratings program and report to the attorney general every six months on how well Cigna is complying with the agreement.
"Quality doesn't have to be the enemy of cost, but they have to be different measures," Mr. Cuomo said.
The New York agreement could also help keep health-care rating initiatives from getting mired in legal disputes in other states, said Peter Lee, co-chairman of the Consumer Purchaser Disclosure Project, a coalition of employers, unions and consumer groups, and health-policy organizations that endorses public reporting of health-care performance. "We've seen a backlash that's taken the form of lawsuits," he said. "Now, we have a solution that lets us get on with the business of improving health care."
A spokeswoman for Aetna said the company does disclose on its Web site its criteria and methods for measuring doctors but that it, too, is interested in working with a nationally recognized external group "to help make these physician-ranking programs the best they can be for consumers." A UnitedHealth spokesman said the company has sent a 25-page response to Mr. Cuomo's office and already consults with physicians in developing its ratings.
Jeffrey Kang, Cigna's chief medical officer, said the insurer wouldn't complete changes to its ratings systems until its next annual review of physicians, set to happen at the end of 2008 and early 2009.
Courtesy of WSJ. See original at:
http://online.wsj.com/public/article...560674963.html