The Doctor's Office - Quality Rankings Can Work, For Patients and Doctors

Atlantic from Above
By BombDog.

WSJ's Dr. Benjamin Brewer, a private practice doctor, shares his practice's report card,

The research is conducted through the Practice Partner Research Network, a joint effort whose participants include a medical software company and the Medical University of South Carolina, which designs and conducts the research. The university studies data from my electronic medical record on about 75-80 quality indicators ... compared with data from about 100 practices across 37 states.

We've been participating for the last six months and the process is still relatively new to us. This week I received my first big "report card."

Here's Dr. Brewer's report card

Since it is expected that practices with higher scores will attract more patients,

To balance supply and demand, the price for the services of top-performing physicians would have to go up in response to the good ratings -- but so far insurers and the government don't seem to want to pay the price when it comes to primary care.

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