Curbside Consult with Dr. Jayne 7/14/14

I wrote a few weeks ago about my adventures with the CMS physician portal. Since the reporting of payments and gifts from drug and device manufacturers to physicians is now mandatory, physicians are wise to make sure the information is accurate because it is going to be released to the public.

I had gone on the site and registered for basic portal access in June, but had read that I would have to return in July to register specifically for access to the Open Payments data. Once I went to the Open Payments link (thank goodness the website at least has a decent breadcrumb trail at the top), it asked me to create my profile. It also allows physicians to nominate “authorized representatives” to handle physician information.

It also requires entirely too much other information that CMS should already know about us from our NPI, Medicare, and other applications: NPI, license number, practice type, specialty code, DEA number, etc. The first words that popped into my head (of course in a snarky voice) were “administrative simplification.”

Rather than have the specialty codes on a pick list, I had to launch a 359-page PDF to figure it out. Finally, Page 212 had a link to Appendix C, where the answer was still nowhere to be found; the appendix had a link to the CMS taxonomy crosswalk. I’m not sure why they couldn’t have hooked up the link on the actual application to the crosswalk in the first place.

Even though the crosswalk lists my specialty code as “08” in the column that says “Medicare Specialty Code,” what they actually wanted was the code in the “Provider Taxonomy Code” column. Don’t bother trying to cut and past the 10-digit code into the form because it won’t work right. I was able to finally get through all the steps, only to learn that I won’t be able to do anything else until my profile is “registered” after my identity as a physician is confirmed. I’m surprised they didn’t ask for my blood type.

When I write about my initial experience, I also asked for a good martini recipe to help me get through it. Weird News Andy was happy to oblige with one that plays to my literary passions:

Charles Dickens Martini

1) Make a martini as you see fit

2) Add an olive or twist

I’m still laughing. There are so many Dickens titles that seem appropriate for healthcare IT: Great Expectations, Hard Times, and Bleak House, to name a few. It looks like my attempts to see my Open Payments data are turning into either a serial or a novel.

Have a literary suggestion that meshes with our lives in the IT trenches? Email me.

Email Dr. Jayne.