The largest and most accurate data available on medical providers in the U.S.

What is Quality?

Quality medical care is hard to identify from a medical record. Quality means the patient got better and can return to their regular life's activities. Some attempts to measure quality have looked at adverse effects such as mortality rates and hospital readmissions. These outcomes should almost never occur, so they tell you nothing about 99% of doctors. Furthermore, when using adverse events to measure quality, it is important to adjust for patient risk, so doctors do not avoid more risky patients, the ones in most need of treatment and healthcare equity, but there is no perfect solution for risk adjustment that takes into account social determinants of health. Other attempts to measure quality have looked at what doctors should not do, specifically unnecessary care. While following the findings from evidence-based medicine is important, some have suggested these measures are focused more on cost, specifically cost avoidance. PRS uses a predictor of quality that is available for every medical provider: level of experience. This is backed by the medical evidence as the best proxy measure to predict a good health outcome. Experienced doctors also know when not to do a procedure, and because they are busy performing successful procedures, they are not looking to add inappropriate procedures. The data shows higher performing providers do not cost more, and when considering better outcomes, they cost less. Users of PRS can identify high-performing medical providers to lower healthcare costs through improved health outcomes. Detailed information is available on over one million providers per year for ten years. For every reimbursable service they perform, providers are ranked nationally, regionally, and locally. They are also ranked within their medical specialty according to a Composite Ranking Score that is also translated into a letter grade.