Public Reporting Is a Judgment Call

IHPI members David Miller, M.D., M.P.H., James Montie, M.D., and Khurshid Ghani, M.B., Ch.B., discuss the pros and cons surrounding the "Surgeon Scorecard" concept unveiled earlier this month by the investigative journalism group PopPublica.

Using publicly available Medicare claims data, ProPublica calculated and reported complication rates for surgeons who performed a minimum threshold volume of each procedure from 2009 through 2013. The scorecard has provided patients, as well as other consumers and stakeholders, the opportunity to judge individual surgeons on both the number of cases they perform and the frequency of associated complications. 

In their analysis of the scorecard, the members also note that while some dismiss the scorecard as ill-advised and poorly constructed, others argue it represents an important step toward improving quality and transparency in healthcare.