Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

President plans technology standards for health care providers.

Your quality and outcomes could be held up for scrutiny sooner than you realize.

President Bush will sign an executive order requiring all health care providers who treat Medicare or Medicaid patients to have tools to measure their quality "in a matter of weeks," Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt told the National Governors Association according to the Washington Post. The order also will call for uniform standards for your health information technology (HIT).

By the end of the year, most of the 100 largest employers will sign similar contracts with the hospitals and doctors who treat their workers.

At first, quality measurements and standards for HIT will be "pretty basic," Leavitt noted. But they'll build the foundation for a system where patients can make informed decisions about which providers to visit, and how much treatments are likely to cost.

Governors expressed interest but were skeptical about whether doctors want their quality to be measured. But Leavitt said the physicians he's met with are eager to have standards set for care, so they can compare their performance with other physicians'. Doctors are also eager to receive financial rewards for high quality, Leavitt insisted.