NY officials demand halt to doctor-rating plan

As consumer-driven healthcare keeps evolving, rating physician quality and making those ratings public is only natural, right?  Not in New York, it isn't. The state AG's office has issued a warning letter to UnitedHealthcare asking the health plan to cancel the planned release of physician quality ratings in September. The letter noted that when UnitedHealth made a similar set of disclosures in Missouri in 2005, havoc ensued, and what's more, contends the insurer largely ranked physicians on what the care they provided cost, rather than how well patients did.

UnitedHealth, for its part, is in talks with the AG's office to resolve the matter. Meanwhile, a spokesman notes that UnitedHealthcare has already begun disclosing similar information in 94 other U.S. markets, presumably without generating the firestorm which has blown up in New York.

To learn more about the controversy:
- read this piece from The New York Times (reg. req.)

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