SCHWARTZ HEALTHCARE-IT BLOG

Rated PG: Physician Good

CIGNA announced a national website ranking doctors and hospitals by cost and quality measures. As I’ve written before on doctor ratings, this movement is inevitable despite all the my-patients-are-sicker claims by doctors, or the efforts of various Attorney Generals.  Such watchdogs efforts are important though to see that health plans don’t skew the data for their own financial goals.

Cigna’s site names hospitals in specific regions with the lowest death and complication rates. It also offers lists of questions patients can ask their doctor about specific conditions and tools to help patients locate pharmacies with the lowest prices.

In New York, Cigna was one of many plans who pledged in writing to detail its ranking criteria. They’ve also tapped the National Committee for Quality Assurance to guide their ranking program.

Meanwhile in Massachusetts the MA Medical Society is up in arms about the state’s doc rankings. They sued the Group Insurance Commission to stop the rankings, claiming low-ranking doctors will be defamed and those patients who have to pay higher copayments based on their doctor’s ranking have been defrauded.

And last but not least, though most confusing to Joe Smith consumer, will be Consumer Reports new hospital rating service for 3,000 organizations. Their “intensity of care” index of 1 to 100 will rate how intensely a hospital treats patients, based on time spent in the hospital and number of doctor visits for nine serious conditions. This strikes me as a controversial and incomplete criteria compared to other methods.

Tags: CIGNA, Consumer+Reports, doctor+ratings, healthcare+PR, healthcare+quality, medical+PR

Posted by Shawn Whalen on June 6, 2008 at 10:51 AM
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