A decision announced Friday would allow the public and journalists access to Medicare claims data about individual doctors.
An injunction barring release of the data had been in place for 33 years, “when a federal court in Florida sided with the American Medical Association’s contention that doctors’ right to privacy trumped the public’s interest in knowing how tax dollars were spent,” according to John Carreyrou of The Wall Street Journal.
“Dow Jones & Co., The Wall Street Journal’s parent company, challenged the injunction in 2011 after the Journal published a series of articles showing how the information could be used to expose fraud and abuse in the $549 billion health-care program for the elderly and disabled.”
Wall Street Journal reporters, who negotiated for eight years worth of data if they did not publish identities, wrote a series of stories about Medicare data, showing that the federal government isn’t taking advantage of the data it has to detect fraud. The Wall Street Journal’s articles have offered a window into the forces driving up health spending and shown that analyzing the data can reveal abuse and fraud in the Medicare system.
“The public has a right to know how much physicians are being paid by Medicare and what services they are providing patients,” said AHCJ President Charles Ornstein. “With analysis and context from journalists, the data could help patients make informed decisions and provide necessary oversight of billions of dollars in federal spending.”
Carreyrou reports the American Medical Association “is considering its options on how best to continue to defend the personal privacy interests of all physicians.”
“The Crushing Cost of Care,” by the WSJ’s Janet Adamy and Tom McGinty, won first place in the Health Policy (large) category of the 2012 Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism.
Read more about the Medicare data and the fight to open it to the public:
- Award winners share their tips for reporting significant stories
- Feds indict doc whose abuses were detailed in 2010 WSJ series
- Effort to make Medicare data public advances
- Senators join fight to open Medicare claims data
- WSJ sues for release of Medicare provider data
- WSJ exposes flaws of Medicare’s pay now, investigate later culture
- WSJ details conflicts that drive spine fusion surgery
- WSJ explains why Medicare data is hidden
- Medicare data shows dangerous prescribing habits, lack of oversight
