Quality reporting a "considerable burden" for practices

A new study has found that the average physician practice spends more than $40,000 on quality reporting each year, and that much of the reporting is not useful to those practices.

Among the findings in the report, published in the March issue of Health Affairs, was that “the cost to physician practices in dealing with quality measures is high and rising,” with most physicians stating that compiling data takes more time and effort now than it did three years ago.

“Anecdotally, dealing with these measures imposes a considerable burden on physician practices in terms of understanding the measures, providing performance data, and understanding performance reports from payers,” the report states.

The report also finds that practices “on average spend 785 hours per practice [per year] and more than $15.4 billion dealing with reporting quality assessments.” Those numbers translate to about 15 hours per week compiling data for quality reporting at each practice, at a cost of about $40,000 per year.

This article was originally published in Physician Practice Perspectives. Subscribers can read the full article in the June 2016 issue.