Physician practices spend $15.4 billion annually on quality reporting

Editor's Note

Physician practices each year spend 785 hours per physician to track and report quality measures for Medicare and private health insurers at a cost of  more than $15.4 billion a year, this study finds.

Eight in 10 physicians surveyed reported spending more effort on quality measures now than 3 years ago, and nearly half reported significant burden because of multiple similar measures. Only 27% thought the current measures were representative of care quality.

Though much is gained from quality measurement, the current system is unnecessarily costly, the authors say. Greater effort is needed to standardize measures and make them easier to report.

1Lawrence P. Casalino (lac2021{at}med.cornell.edu ) is the Livingston Farrand Professor of Public Health and chief of the Division of Health Policy and Economics in the Department of Healthcare Policy and Research at Weill Cornell Medical College, in New York City.