Northern Kentucky included in Medicaid’s pilot program to increase data about quality of health care

The Health Improvement Collaborative of Greater Cincinnati, which includes much of Northern Kentucky, is included as one of three regions to participate in a program designed to bolster availability of information about doctors, hospitals and health care providers, the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has announced. According to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the new program will match private data with Medicare claims data to create comprehensive reports on provider performance.  The other two organizations selected are Kansas City Quality Improvement Consortium and the Oregon Health Care Quality Corporation.

The program will place quality markers on those receiving Medicare claims data. For example, they must show that they can manage and process consumer-focused data, can prevent breaches of protected health information and that they are working with private insurers in order to produce comprehensive reports on provider performance. The program is also intended to protect patient privacy, enforcing strong penalties if Medicare data is misued.
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