Colorado adopts doctor rating standards, health system reforms

Several bills signed into law in June followed a state blue ribbon commission's recommendations.

By Doug Trapp, AMNews staff. July 7, 2008.

Washington -- New laws in Colorado will enable physicians to review and contest health plan rating systems, patients to have standardized and possibly electronic health plan IDs, and insurance companies to develop new types of plans that the state may help consumers purchase.

Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. on June 3 signed into law a host of health care bills. Colorado Medical Society spokeswoman Edie Sonn said the measure regulating physician ratings could be a national trendsetter. It was influenced by a model developed by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

The measure requires health plans to make transparent their systems for profiling, rating or otherwise characterizing physicians, said Dave Downs, MD, the medical society's president. "The law basically says that if that data is publicly reported, they need to demonstrate its validity and accuracy of attribution." It also gives physicians a chance to appeal the ratings.

Jeremy A. Lazarus, MD, speaker of the AMA House of Delegates, said, "The work of the Colorado Medical Society will help create a much fairer environment for physicians to practice medicine in, and shows that with the concerted action of physicians working together, we can achieve our goals."

The law arose from discussions between insurers and physicians in an advisory council assembled when UnitedHealth Group and PacifiCare Health Services Inc. merged in 2006. Michael Huotari, executive director of the Colorado Assn. of Health Plans, said the talks that led to the law were relatively harmonious.