What You Need to Know About Medical Provider

By: Mark J. Mabaquiao

 

The next time you visit your primary doctor, specialist or hospital, you may want to take a look at some important information about them, because what you find out could be of benefit to you.

I would like to introduce you to two little-known resources that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has made available to everyone – Hospital Star Ratings and Open Payments Data. On August 3rd, CMS handed out its first-ever set of overall ratings for hospital quality. A total of 3,617 hospitals are ranked from 1 – 5 stars (5 being the best). Medicare draws on 64 measures to produce the rating, which include reports on patient deaths and readmissions after discharge, to name a few. In Illinois, only Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville and St. Joseph’s Hospital in Breese received 5 stars.

On the other side of the spectrum, five hospitals received 1 star, like University of Illinois Hospital in Chicago. Do you want to know how your hospital measured up (or down)? Send me an email at mark@medicaresmart.net and I would be happy to email you the full report from CMS.

Ever wonder why your doctor may have you on certain medications or devices? The Open Payments Data program may provide some insight. From the cms.gov website, “The Open Payments Data program is a federal program…that collects information about the payments drug and device companies make to physicians and teaching hospitals for things like travel, research, gifts, speaking fees, and meals.

It also includes ownership interests that physicians or their immediate family members have in these companies.” Simply put, this program may let you know if your medical provider has your best interests or their best interests when prescribing certain medications and devices. You can access the program online at openpaymentsdata.cms.gov.