FTC Looks At Health Quality Comparisons

10. What are the tradeoffs between quality-based competition and the availability of health care?

B. Barriers To Developing and Implementing Quality Measures

1. What barriers–clinical, marketplace, regulatory, or other– restrict the measurement, collection, and reporting of health care quality information? Can health care quality be measured such that it is of value to purchasers in their decision making?

2. Do providers and insurers have business reasons to develop and implement public reporting of quality measures?

3. How should quality measurements deal with organizational variation on the supply side (e.g., solo physician practitioners, small physician groups, integrated physician groups, etc.). If so, how should the measures be adjusted to consider this variation?

4. How does the development of reimbursement and payment reform affect the development of quality measurements?

5. Several private and public entities have developed standards to measure health care quality. Are concerns about provider capture of these organizations relevant in this context?

C. Federal Policies To Facilitate Quality Information Collection and Reporting

1. What federal policies can help overcome any marketplace barriers to the measurement, collection, and reporting of quality information?

2. How can government use its role as a payer (e.g., Medicare, Medicaid) to facilitate the development and use of quality information more broadly?

3. What are the costs and benefits of a single entity developing the quality measures, collecting and analyzing the data, and reporting the results? What are the costs and benefits of governmental involvement in these activities?

4. How should federal, state, and private sector efforts to measure and report on health care quality be harmonized so that purchasers obtain the benefits of cost and quality information?

Responses to the questions are due Sept. 30.