Data Dump

Knowledge is power and that's exactly what the most recent CMS data dump has given consumers. Until now it has been extremely difficult for patients to do their own research to find specialist to perform a unique surgery. Now they can not only find a list of doctors who have performed the surgery before, but they can see how many they have done, and how much they got paid to do them. This gives customers important knowledge and the ability to make an informed decision about whether or not they are getting ripped off. One of the biggest causes associated with the rise of healthcare costs. It gives the the ability to spot the "wasters" the doctors that use really expensive treatments when others that are equally effective and half the price are overlooked. This new data sheds light on outright fraud within the industry. As if using a more expensive treatment than necessary wasn't wasteful enough there are doctors that bill for products and services that are not either needed nor completed.

So I've stated how the data can be used to stop foul play, here's how it can make work to better our system. We can use it to track trends within the industry and stop major epidemics and pandemics before they occur. See where the money needs to be spent in prevention and awareness. Eventually more data will be released which can be mashed up in order to show similarities, differences, and build a more complete portfolio.

As in any industry data is the future. The more data that is tracked and used to make better decisions about the future the more successful we can be. I foresee more and more data becoming available to patients, doctors, and insurance companies and with that I see serious progress toward a more efficient healthcare industry.

EVERA. Everyone should feel this good about healthcare.

Sources:

http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2014/06/09/10-things-you-can-do-with-cms-data/

http://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Files-for-Order/NonIdentifiahttp://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2014/06/09/10-things-you-can-do-with-cms-data/bleDataFiles/HealthCareInformationSystem.html