AMA develops guidelines for reporting doc profile data

While physician profiling programs have the potential to positively influence physician behavior and facilitate practice improvements, the information contained within physician data reports can be difficult to understand and utilize. To improve these potentially useful tools, the American Medical Association (AMA) has published guidelines for reporting physician data.

“Multiple barriers prevent physicians from effectively using the data in these reports,” the document read. “Physicians may have difficulty understanding complex performance data and analytic methodologies used in creating these reports. The utility of existing data reports is also limited by the lack of aggregated claims data from all sources, including Medicare and Medicaid.”

Nearly every healthcare payer sponsors a physician profiling program and, to make these programs more effective, the AMA suggested payers collaboratively work toward greater standardization of reporting formats, greater transparency of processes used to create reports and making an adequate depth of data available to physicians.

Based on its work with individual physicians, payers and accreditors, the AMA developed a set of guidelines that take into account many aspects of care, including quality and cost.

“The AMA urges health plans and other payers and reporting bodies to formally affirm their support for the reporting guidelines and many of the concepts embodied within them,” the document read. “While it may not be feasible for all health plans and other payers and reporting entities to immediately follow all of the individual guidelines within this document, a group’s support for the reporting guidelines indicates an acknowledgement that these are aspirational goals for physician data reporting.

The complete guidelines for reporting physician data are available here.