Physician group will rate payers

Tired of being rated by insurance plans, government agencies and consumers? Well, if you're a family physician, here's your chance to create your own scorecard. The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) has set plans to launch what it calls a "massive" payer report card, grading the plans on their contracting process, customer service, payment rates, claims processing performance, formulary, responsiveness and more, assigning a grade from A to F. AAFP is collecting the responses online, but only members can respond to the survey. The group plans to publish an aggregated report card in April 2007 in its Family Practice Management magazine. If this effort gets a strong response--and I have little doubt it will--look for other physician groups to follow in the AAFP's footsteps.

To learn more about the report card effort:
- read the group's announcement