The Divided We Fail group, made up of AARP, Business Roundtable, and the Service Employees International Union, on Wednesday endorsed legislation intended to help improve healthcare quality and efficiency and bring patients the performance data necessary to make educated decisions about their care.
The Medicare Quality Enhancement Act was introduced by Sens. Judd Gregg, R-NH, and Hillary Clinton, D-NY, and would provide Medicare enrollment, claims, and survey and assessment data to private organizations to develop reports that measure healthcare quality for public use. The reports could include physician-specific data that are essential for identifying high-quality and efficient practice patterns and promoting cost control strategies that improve quality.
Under the act, the private organizations that would mine the Medicare data, known as Medicare quality reporting organizations (MQROs), would be required to follow strict privacy guidelines. For instance, they would be required to allow the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to review their reports to ensure that personal and identifiable data are not divulged. Read the press release.
