CMS Requests Public Comments on the Potential Release of Medicare Physician Data

Back in late June ProPublica published the Medicare Part D data as part of a public request for information, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Now CMS is seeking comment, if in fact a release of physician level Medicare claims data is a good idea or not. Does the release of this data potentially violate a physician's right to privacy? In late May of this year, we reported that a federal district court in Florida had vacated an injunction issued in 1979 that barred the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from disclosing certain Medicare payment claims data for physicians. In 1978, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (now HHS), planned to release a list of all physicians and providers who received $100,000 or more in Medicare reimbursements in 1977, including physician names and net total amounts of Medicare reimbursements paid directly to each physician, as HEW had similarly done the year before. Prior to the release of this second list, the Florida Medical Association (FMA) and six individual physicians, joined by the American Medical Association (AMA), representing their physician members who provide Medicare services, filed suit to enjoin HEW from releasing this list and any similar lists in the future. In 1979, a Florida federal court granted an injunction in favor of the physicians and other plaintiffs after finding that the disclosure was covered by Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Exemption 6, which provides that FOIA "d...
Source: Policy and Medicine - Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Source Type: blogs