Sen. Grassley seeks more public information on doctors; some experts say physicians could take tough stance with 'assertive' patients

News outlets report on issues related to doctors.

CQ HealthBeat: Grassley Again Urges HHS to Restore Public Information On Doctors
Full public access should be restored to a federal databank on sanctioned doctors maintained by the Department of Health and Human Services, Republican Sen. Charles E. Grassley said in a letter to the agency Friday. Grassley wrote to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to reiterate his objections to a decision by the Health Research and Services Administration (HRSA) to remove the National Practitioner Databank's Public Use File from its website. The databank does not identify doctors by name; it is used by consumer groups, researchers and others to look at how state medical boards are disciplining doctors, as well as hospital sanctions and medical malpractice payouts (Norman, 11/4).

CQ HealthBeat: Patient Engagement, Physician Performance Measures Could Be At Odds, Experts Say
Physicians could resort to "firing" their patients to avoid missing quality-performance measures as patients become more assertive about making their own health care decisions, participants at an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality National Advisory Council forum speculated Friday. Council member Lisa M. Latts, vice president for programs in clinical excellence with WellPoint, Inc, said provider efforts to improve quality of care are coming up against expanded patient engagement in health decisions. Physician performance measures are increasingly used by payers to calculate some financial incentives and even penalties (Bristol, 11/4).

Market Watch: Health Care Needs A Revolution, Doctor Says
Occupy Wall Street, meet your medical equivalent. Health care needs a total revolution so it starts promoting and paying for health instead of disease. That's the conclusion Dr. Walter Bortz has come to after writing 150 scientific articles, authoring seven books and spending 40 years as a geriatrician at the Palo Alto Medical Clinic (Gerencher, 11/7).