Sliver of Medicare Doctors Get Big Share of Payouts
Fraud investigators, health insurance plans, researchers and others will spend weeks poring over the information about how many tests were ordered and procedures performed for every provider who received Medicare payments under Part B, which excludes payments to hospitals and other institutions. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is making the data publicly available on Wednesday. While total Medicare spending — including hospitals, doctors and drugs — is approaching $600 billion a year, payments to individual doctors have long been shrouded in secrecy. For decades, the American Medical Association, the powerful doctors’ group, and others have blocked the release of the information, citing privacy concerns and the potential for misuse of the information. But a federal judge ruled last year that the information could be made public.
Medicare paid $12 billion for 214 million office and outpatient visits, most of them described as between 15 and 25 minutes long. The practitioners — usually doctors, but sometimes nurse practitioners, were paid an average of $57 a visit.