The issue of claims data continues to rear its head. We just learned that Senators Kennedy, Clinton, Gregg and Enzi plan to move their “Wired for Healthcare Quality Act” (S. 1693) this week. The legislation is intended to promote widespread HIT use, but it also includes a section that allows the public release of reports based on federal health care data, including physician-identified Medicare claims data.

Over the past few months, the ACC and several other physician organizations have met repeatedly with congressional staff to discuss concerns with claims data-based reporting based and urge significant modifications to the legislation. While these discussions have contributed to a number of positive changes in the public reporting section of the bill, many questions still remain. 

As the ACC continues its discussions around public reporting, we need to be aware that a number of our research members are currently engaged in using claims data for certain legitimate research purposes. We will also likely be using claims data for certain NCDR "trending" purposes, such as tracking frequency of use of certain procedures or diagnostic studies. When developing a stance on this bill (or potentially others) we need to not to be so strident against claims data that Congress interprets our position to be that claims data has no appropriate uses or value. This could hurt our credibility and limit our ability to influence changes. Rather, we need to continue to make clear that claims data cannot be effectively applied to clinical outcomes measurement. We are firm in this regard for good reason.