health care data collection povd audit request july 16 04.…

Sheldon Wasserman State Representative July 16, 2004 WASSERMAN REQUESTS AUDIT OF PHYSICIAN OFFICE VISIT DATA PROGRAM MADISON—State Representative Sheldon Wasserman (D-Milwaukee) submitted a request to the Joint Committee on Audit co-chairs this afternoon, in which he asked for an audit of the Bureau of Health Information (BHI) with a particular focus on the Physician Office Visit Data (POVD) program. BHI tracks, gathers and produces reports on various health statistics, vital records and other health care information relative to Wisconsin citizens and the state’s providers of health care. Six years ago the legislature passed a bill to expand Wisconsin’s data collection efforts to include information on physician office visits. BHI was designated to implement POVD collection, which is funded by program revenue (a tax on physicians). And more recently via the 2003-2004 budget bill, a private entity, the Wisconsin Hospital Association, was charged with collecting and reporting information on hospital and ambulatory and surgery data. “Six years and over five million dollars later, the POVD program has yet to release any data. Before the Legislature entertains any new government-run health care data programs, there are many questions that must be answered about POVD,” said Wasserman, who is the Legislature’s only physician and ranking member of the Assembly Committees on Health and Public Health. In his letter to Senator Carol Roessler ...