Court Gives Group Access To Medicare Claims Data

According to the The Wall Street Journal the Nonprofit Consumer’s CHECKBOOK/Center for the Study of Services won a court case that would require the Department of Health and Human Services to release physician-claims data in Maryland, Illinois, Washington, Virginia and the District of Columbia. The federal court in the District of Columbia ruled the claims data could reflect only a portion of a doctors’ income and disclosing it would “help the public make more informed Medicare decisions and provide more information of how government funds are spent.” The data at issue include medical-procedure and billing details that physicians send to Medicare to get reimbursed by the federal insurance program for the elderly and disabled.