WASHINGTON – Nearly one-third of American health consumers are intolerant of even the slightest inaccuracies in reporting physician performance ratings, a recent study found.
Matthew Davis, MD, senior researcher of the Center for Studying Health System Change and coauthor of the study, said the findings raise a question as to whether healthcare plans should publicly report the level of accuracy in their performance measurements.
“Major limitations in readily available clinical data sources and resulting performance measures make it likely that error in most individual physician ratings exceeds 5 percent,” Davis said.
According to the study, consumers are most intolerant of inaccuracy when data is to be used for selecting a personal physician or when insurance plans will pay physicians differently based on performance ratings.
“We expect that the group of consumers who wanted to know about their physicians’ financial arrangements a decade ago is similar to the group that would want to know about the accuracy of data upon which today’s physician reimbursement is based,” Davis said.
The study raises the conundrum of whether healthcare plans should explain the complexities associated with interpreting data, and if in so doing they lose consumer trust. “If a substantial proportion of consumers decline to respond to ratings, plans and provider leaders will need to improve the accuracy of ratings or consider other means of trying to improve care,” Davis said.
“Despite the variation, consumers’ willingness to tolerate inaccurate ratings likely is much higher than physicians’, possibly because consumers see flawed information as preferable to no information at all, while physicians are justifiably concerned that inaccurate ratings will jeopardize their reputations and livelihoods,” he added.
The study, titled “Consumer Tolerance for Inaccuracy in Physician Performance Ratings: One Size Fits None,” was based on a survey of 1,057 adults aged 18 and older and was conducted Dec. 14-18, 2006.
The survey measured consumer acceptance for measurement error in physician performance ratings for four applications: Releasing ratings to the general public, using ratings to choose one’s own primary care physician, using ratings to vary physicians’ payment rates based on performance, and using ratings to encourage consumers to seek care from more highly rated physicians via tiered-benefit plans.
The most common response for each application of physician performance ratings was low tolerance for inaccuracy. More than 20 percent of consumers, however, reported being comfortable with inaccuracy of 20 percent, the study said.
HSC President Paul B. Ginsburg said the study is significant because, “as doctors and health plans spar over the accuracy of fledgling physician performance rating programs, consumer views about accuracy have been absent from the debate until now.”