Forty states have earned an 'F' and seven states have earned a 'D' for transparency and quality of physician quality information in a new report from the nonprofit Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute.
The report scored states on the scope and accessibility of publically available information on physician quality. Measures factored into state grades included the percentage of clinicians with transparent quality information, the availability of outcome, process and patient experience measures, whether the information was accessible to consumers, whether the information was understandable to consumers and whether the information was useful to consumers.
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In addition, the report considered whether available information was up-to-date, free, produced by impartial third parties and included a full spectrum of physician specialties. More often than not, available quality information pertained mostly to primary care physicians, rather than specialists. Specialists account for approximately 85 percent of care costs, according to a report from Kaiser Health News.
Three states passed the transparency of information assessment. California earned a 'C', while Minnesota and Washington earned 'A' grades.
The assessment follows one on state healthcare price transparency from HCI3 from earlier this year.
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