Federal Ruling Permits FOIA Request For Individual Provider Organization Medicare Payments

On May 31, 2013, a federal judge lifted a ban on public access information on Medicare payments to physicians and other health care professionals participating in Medicare who are paid on a fee-for-service basis. The legal ruling was on a motion filed in January 2011 by Dow Jones, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) permitted the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to provide researchers access to about five percent of the file, but the injunction prevented disclosure of physician names. The plaintiffs sought to lift . . .