Information about quality doctors lacking in most states
Why your access to independent physician reviews is one big #fail
Turns out, unless you live in Minnesota or Washington, access to independent physician ratings is very hard to come by.
At least, that’s what The Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute reported earlier this month in their 2014 State Report Card on Transparency of Physician Quality information.
To illustrate how bad it is, only the two aforementioned states received an A. And only an additional 2 received Bs (California and Maine). Every other state got a C or below, with a full 40 states receiving an F.
Francois de Brantes, executive director of the Institute, sums it up: “Consumers are flying blind when it comes to selecting hospitals and physicians, and the overall quality and affordability of American health care won’t be improved until we find a way to solve this problem.”
How did Minnesota score such high marks? Their ratings site at http://www.mnhealthscores.org is a big reason. By providing an easy to use independent source for consumers to browse, they won big points.
You can see how your state did here: http://www.hci3.org/sites/default/files/files/2014%20Quality%20Map%20FINAL.pdf