The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has released data on physician payments under Medicare in 2012, the first such disclosure in the history of the government-run health care system for those 65 and older.
In all, the new "data set has information for over 880,000 distinct health care providers who collectively received $77 billion in Medicare payments in 2012, under the Medicare Part B Fee-For-Service program," according to a CMS press release.
"Data transparency is a key aspect of transformation of the health care delivery system,” said CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner. “While there’s more work ahead, this data release will help beneficiaries and consumers better understand how care is delivered through the Medicare program.”
The data can be downloaded from the CMS.gov site here.