Rating of Physicians

Better physician rating when care is denied (cost are kept low)

This is NOT the way to treat doctors or patients

This IS the trend and is the focus of the President and the U.S. Congress: keep the for-profit companies and do whatever possible to reduce costs.

From Massachusetts … the state with mandated heath insurance that is now desperately trying to control costs with its failed experiment … and from other states across the country
- Washington Post

“After 26 years of a successful medical practice, Alan Berkenwald took for granted that he had a good reputation. But last month he was told he didn’t measure up – by a new computerized rating system.”

“A patient said an insurance company had added $10 to the cost of seeing Berkenwald instead of other physicians in his western Massachusetts town because the system had demoted him to its Tier 2 for quality.”

… and …

“Physicians who have been profiled, including those with top ratings, say that the data often contain errors and that doctors often lack the ability to correct them. The effort is more about cutting costs than raising quality, some say, adding that doctors could begin to “cherry pick” healthier patients whose problems are less costly to treat. Such systems fail to capture the intangibles of quality, such as a doctor who visits a dying patient at home, critics say.”

“The trend, which parallels a push by President Bush to promote consumer access to information about health-care quality and cost, has spurred a lawsuit in Seattle, a physician revolt in St. Louis and a demand by a state attorney general that one insurer halt its planned program.”