The Department of Health and Human Services has filed an appeal in the
case Consumers' Checkbook/Center for the Study of Services v. HHS. Consumers'
Checkbook, a nonprofit group, had sued HHS in order to force the department
to release Medicare claims data under the Freedom of Information Act to
analyze the data and report metrics on physician performance. HHS contends
that the data, which includes physician, but not patient, identifiers,
violates the privacy of physicians. In August, the court rejected the privacy
argument and ordered HHS to release the information.