Doctors are split on the value of transparency

Some additional news regarding the Medicare Physician data: Healthcare IT News reports that the medical community is split on whether the data should be released. As expected, some physicians "said the data is too easily misinterpreted by the public and could be used to portray physicians in a negative and unfair light" -- which strikes me as a classic way of saying that consumers are not saavy enough to benefit from increased transparency. Rather than hiding behind vague possibilities, why not educate the industry on how interpretation of the data could actually go wrong? Better yet, rather than condescendingly dismiss the value of such data, why not release data that they do think is important?

I am hopeful that Medicare will choose to release this information, and if so, I think some organizations can help consumers better figure out which providers to see. Obviously, there will be many other benefits, including increased transparency and fraud detection. If the opponents are right that this data proves to not be useful, it's hard to imagine the data having much of a negative effect. After all, when has increased transparency had significant harmful effects in the long-term? If you haven't already responded to the Department of Health and Human Services' request for public comment, you still have a few days to let them know what you think.