'Surgeon scorecard' measures docs by complications

Surgeons around the country are now scored against their peers in a new statistic developed by a non-profit news organization that goes beyond hospital-level data, providing a never-before-available tool for consumers and generating debate and some angst in the surgical community. Nearly 17,000 doctors performing low-risk, common elective procedures such as gallbladder removal and hip replacements are measured in the new calculation, which the non-profit news outlet ProPublica calls an "Adjusted Complication Rate." The data, derived from government records collected about Medicare patients, is now available online for anyone to search.