Medicare’s Website Overhaul:
A Step in a Better Direction
W
Dylan J. Chadwick Physicians Office Resource Staff Writer
hen Medicare made the 2012 announcement that they’d developed a new system in which they’d determine an individual physician’s reimbursement payment based on their measured “quality of care,” many experts and physician’s found themselves squeamish about their overly simplistic approach to the process. The underlying question “what constitutes quality of care?” had many questioning the organization’s motives and scope, and their preliminary system of payment and judgment seemingly failed to account for many factors. However, a more recent Medicare announcement shows that the organization’s insistence on streamlining medical processes isn’t always a hot button proclamation with a laundry list of caveats. The medical juggernaut's newest development, an intuitive website overhaul, does seem to provide the argument that some (albeit, not all) processes in a "nearly-ACA" America may be getting smoother, more allinclusive and beneficial to doctors and patients alike. “Give me convenience, or give me death,” goes the adage (with a modern spin by yours truly) and it’s with this attitude that Medicare makes many of their site adjustments. The arduous task of locating and comparing physicians is simplified, and the system genuinely improves. A Better Website Medicare’s online directory of participating physicians has been tweaked and redesigned in an effort to improve the accuracy of the site’s information, and also to render the search function more user-friendly. After numerous errors were discovered on the site following its initial launch in December 2010, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) began overhauling the site, utilizing technicians to address the issues and to build new and more handy features for patients to use when searching for medical care. The new and improved version of the site went live on June 27th of this year. This effort to serve the nearly one million physicians and healthcare professionals who serve the Medicare population will, according to CMS administrator Marilyn Tavener, “provide new information in an improved, easyto-use format.” Many of the site’s changes have come from the American Medical Association’s help, and the two have worked together to fix major hiccups within the site like incorrect addresses and false listings which show physicians at practice locations they left years ago. Physicians have also been enlisted to ensure that the directory is accurate and useful to all Medicare beneficiaries and participating doctors. The website was a requirement of the Affordable Care Act. Here’s a closer look. More Ways to Find Care One of the website’s many improvements is a more ‘intelligent” search function. Patients can search for physicians in their area using a zip code, city, state and address. However, an impressive new feature also allows patients to search simply via geographic landmarks like
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