Two New Beta Provider Data Releases

This summer has seen one spectacular new release of healthcare provider data from CarePrecise already, and a second is on the way. The first one, released just a week ago, is already finding its way into EMR pre-population, new web apps, OpenPayments and HIE applications.

The Extended Professional, Group & Hospital(TM) dataset extends CarePrecise's flagship master database, CarePrecise Access Complete (CPAC), with verified group practice data for physicians and other providers, their hospital affiliations, medical schools and graduation years. The EPGH's Extended Hospital table provides an unduplicated list of all U.S. acute care, VA, children's and critical access hospitals that bill Medicare (essentially all of these hospital types bill Medicare, so this list is nearly complete; link it to hospital data in the CPAC, and you've got everything -- a more complete, up-to-date and verified database of physicians than the American Medical Association's list at a small fraction of the cost... plus more than 3 million other healthcare providers not included in the AMA data.

The EPGH has only been released in beta so far, and in beta it is being distributed to all current CPAC subscribers free of charge through September 2013. The EPGH/CPAC bundle is the only commercially available merged database of NPPES, LEIE, PECOS, PhysicianCompare and HospitalCompare data, and it contains all of the "hooks" necessary to link to CMS hospital quality data and forthcoming physician quality data.

Coming next is the beta release of CP ProCase(TM), a proper-case version of the name, mailing address and practice address in CPAC, for all approximately 4 million records. Using CPAC data for marketing and other communications will be easier and more professional looking. As with the EPGH dataset, the ProCase add-on will be available bundled with CPAC, and not separately.

Planned beta release of CP ProCase will coincide with the August 2013 CPAC update release. As with EPGH, ProCase will be distributed as a free beta for evaluation to all current CPAC subscribers. (Betas are not available on single download purchasers.)

And, as if that weren't enough, our popular software, CP ListMaker, is undergoing a rebuild to add EPGH functionality. (Proper casing is already a feature of CP ListMaker.) The new version -- 4.01 -- will sport new output queries that include the new extended data linked to list outputs, completely configurable to use the new information. Release date for CP ListMaker v4.01 is scheduled to coincide with the August CPAC data release.

Questions about the new products? Call your CarePrecise sales representative at (877) 782-2294.

Patients Want Their Providers Online

The second-annual study from Intuit Health, the Health Care Check-Up Survey, found that 73% of Americans surveyed would use secure online tools to access lab results, request appointments, pay medical bills, and communicate with their doctor's office. CarePrecise began building web portals for healthcare providers a few years ago, and has seen a rise in interest from providers, who want to be able to point patients to written information in the controlled environment of their websites. Providers are also looking at adding scheduling applications, and some are participating in PHRs (patient health record portals). Read the Information Week article.

Federal Physician Comparison Website Coming

CMS has until January 1 to create the new PhysicianCompare.hhs.gov site, intended to make it possible to lookup info on your doctor and compare her quality to that of others. Like HospitalCompare.hhs.gov launched recently, the notion is that these sites will create the incentive for providers to give better care, ultimately helping to control healthcare costs. As required by the Affordable Care Act, CMS has two years to get the site serving up quality data on docs.

Not only must quality data be available to help patients make smarter healthcare purchasing decisions, but the Act requires that the site help physicians to actively use the information to improve quality.

At a five-hour-long Town Hall last week, CMS gathered doctors, hospitals, employers and anyone else who wanted to participate with the goal of getting input on what the site should contain. The outspoken participants told them, among many other things:

• Physician's sex, race and age
• Languages spoken
• Office hours
• Medical degrees and schools
• Hospitals where they have privileges
• How long in practice
• Health networks they belong to
• Awards received
• Community service work/care for the poor

Then, of course, there's the quality data coming in 2013. What will that look like? Will physicians who serve sicker populations appear to produce poorer results, or will there be some way to "risk-adjust" so that patients can make apples-to-apples comparisons?

And here's a big one: Should physicians' charges be disclosed? How can you make a value decision without prices? Doctors who charge more might offer additional services; what about house calls, or no-wait appointments, or a Personal Health Record (PHR) portal -- should this information be available?

Naturally, the AMA is pushing back a bit. AMA president James Rohack, M.D. told HealthLeaders Media last week that the AMA's concern is that "individual doctor-level data right now is not ready for prime time, especially in complex situations. The attribution of who's really responsible for that care is not worked out." Dr. Rohack said that doctors aren't particularly afraid of being graded: "The reason we became doctors was because we got good grades."

These and many more questions remain to be resolved even before determining exactly what data will be collected -- a step that is mandated to begin in January of 2012. But pulling away the veil of mystery surrounding the work of the physician is long overdue and worthy of the gargantuan task facing CMS. Unless a wing nut Congress repeals or guts the law within the next two years, we will finally be able to look under the hood before making some of the most important and most costly buying decisions of our lives.

PHR-Lite for Medicare Members

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has launched a new "Blue Button" feature on its MyMedicare.gov website. The app makes it possible for the 47 million Medicare members to access, print or download specific medical information. "Having ready access to personal health information from Medicare claims can help beneficiaries understand their medical history and partner more effectively with providers," the agency says. Having access to Medicare claims means having access to a virtually complete record of your healthcare incidents, the next-best thing to a personal health record (PHR), and it's updated for you by the government. Sweet!