AMA: NY Attorney General Actions Will Protect Patient Choice Of Physicians

Main Category: Litigation / Medical Malpractice
Also Included In: Primary Care / General Practice
Article Date: 19 Oct 2007 - 3:00 PDT

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"The American Medical Association (AMA) welcomes the recent decision by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to issue a consumer warning about the potentially deceptive programs used by health plans to arbitrarily rank physicians. "The AMA is committed to the goal of empowering patients to become more informed purchasers of health care. Achieving this goal will require that patients receive an accurate reflection of physician quality.

"Unfortunately, some health insurers are abandoning the goal of providing patients with honest physician comparisons based on valid quality criteria. A growing number of health insurers have unwisely pushed ahead with unproven economic criteria to rank physicians. These flawed rankings are often financially motivated to inappropriately influence or restrict a patient's choice of a physician.

"The AMA believes patient choice must not be jeopardized by health insurers that use economic profiling to provide a deceptive measure of physician quality.

"The AMA has made it clear that physicians are willing to work with health insurers to discuss sensible standards for providing patients with reliable information. We urge the New York Attorney General to continue his efforts to protect the patient-physician relationship from deceptive ranking programs that do not work."

American Medical Association