Physician Compare Adds Individual Doc Quality Measures, Draws Ire

By Jill Drachenberg, AHC Media Managing Editor

In addition to sites such as Hospital Compare and Nursing Home Compare, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has added six quality of care measures for 40,000 individual physicians on its Physician Compare website. Physician Compare is part of the Physician Quality Reporting System, a voluntary reporting program.

The site originally began reporting PQRS data for accountable care organizations and physician group practices, but on Dec. 10, CMS updated to include the 2014 data for individual physicians on six new measures, including the following:

• body weight screening,
• screening for tobacco use and providing cessation assistance if needed,
• blood pressure screening and follow-up care when needed,
• depression screening and developing follow-up plan,
• checking old and new medications for possible interactions, and
• using medications for heart attack and stroke prevention.

Physicians receive up to five stars on each measure for which there is data available – but CMS officials caution the stars should not be used as a rating or ranking system because they do not rate physicians against each other in quality of care.

“However, consumers can use the quality of care information that is important to them in making informed decisions about their health care,” CMS stated in a Physician Compare fact sheet. “Currently, users have the ability to compare the general information for up to three group practices on Physician Compare. This includes names, addresses, distance from the search location, specialty, Medicare assignment, and affiliated health care professionals.”

Despite the caveat from CMS, the American Medical Association (AMA) is concerned that consumers will see the data and believe it to be an accurate comparison between physicians with current data. AMA President Steven J. Stack, MD, said in a statement that widespread issues with the PQRS calculations means quality measure data may be inaccurate – and may lead consumers to believe that it represents accurate information for all physicians. Stack is also concerned that many physicians don’t know that they could be facing CMS penalties in 2016 for the 2014 PQRS data.

"The AMA is a strong supporter of transparency, but [the Dec. 10] action goes in the opposite direction – offering the public information that will lead consumers to draw faulty inferences about the quality of care that an individual physician or group provides,” Stack said.

Look for more coverage on Physician Compare and response from quality leaders in an upcoming issue of Hospital Peer Review.