Medicare Physician Data: Transparency vs. Privacy

iHealthBeat provides commentary and an update on the outcome of the Consumers' Checkbook v. HHS matter involving whether or not Medicare physicians claims data should be made publicly available.

The United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of Consumers' Checkbook on August 22 requiring that HHS release the physician data requested under FOIA to Consumers' Checkbook. So far HHS has not appealed the decision and the data is required to by produced by September 21.

It will be interesting to see if HHS appeals the decision. Classic example of transparency vs. privacy. Brian Kleppner has more over at that The Health Care Blog.

UPDATE (10/22/07): The WSJ Health Blog reports that HHS has decided to appeal the decision requiring that HHS release data under FOIA to Consumers' Checkbook. The decision initially required production of the data by September 21 which was then extended until October 22.

65,000 Employees, 2 Days, 1 Million Visitors: West Virginia's Auditor Shows Power of Price Transparency

To demonstrate the power of price transparency (or in this case salary transparency) just look at the stats reported in today's Daily Mail on the decision by West Virginia's State Auditor, Glen Gainer to publish on the West Virginia State Auditor's website the compensation of each of West Virginia's 65,000 employees.

According to the article the website received over 1 Million visitors over a two day period last week. That's one hit for every two residents of West Virginia. WOW!

Another great example of the transparency that can occur when public information is really made public through easily accessible means.

For another interesting perspective on transparency -- check out this health care example over at Running a Hospital. Read this post and this post by Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston.

Tip to Lawrence Messina at Lincoln Walks At Midnight whose post first alerted me to the Auditor's decision to post public employee salary information.

Tags: WV, West Virginia, government, transparency

An Example of Transparency In Health Care

Fard Johnmar and I today had a discussion about the post, Running a hospital: Do I get paid too much?, by Paul Levy, CEO at Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center in Boston. Fard mentioned that this is a great example of transparency in health care (Note: Mr. Levy raises an interesting note in the comments -- I cited to the transparency summary to give readers unfamiliar with the concept some background. Here is another interesting read on transparency that I found when looking for a link to "transparency in health care.)

I've not met Mr. Levy and only know him through his online blogging persona, but I'm impressed with his candid post and willingness to discuss the topic. If I was involved with the hiring of a CEO for one of my hospital clients I'd look for a person with Mr. Levy's communication skills. I'll be interested to check his comments section.

Tags: health care, hospital, transparency, Boston