New AMA Guidelines for Standardizing Data Reporting Formats

The American Medical Association has released guidelines to aid health insurers and other reporting bodies in standardizing the format used for physician data reporting and giving physicians patient-level detail to increase the effectiveness of reports.

Many payers have profiling programs to provide physicians with data that can influence decision making, but physicians often have difficulty understanding the information they are given, according to the AMA.

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The association developed the guidelines with input from insurers, medical societies, accreditation bodies, and employer and consumer coalitions. More than 60 organizations have pledged to support the effort. The organizations primarily comprise medical societies across many fields of practice, a couple regional business groups on health, a university, the National Committee for Quality Assurance, and insurers Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee, Cigna, SelectHealth and UnitedHealth Group.

Among other recommendations, the guidelines contend insurers could improve data reports using greater standardization of the reporting format, transparency of the processes used to create the report and presenting an adequate depth of data to physicians.

The guidelines are available here and the list of initial organizations pledging their support is here.