April 10 (Bloomberg) — Doctors denounced the accuracy and value of data listing $77 billion in Medicare payments to 880,000 medical providers, while consumer and industry groups said it could make the health-care system more cost-effective.

The divergent views of Medicare's first-ever release of U.S. payments to physicians suggested the impact may take years to play out. U.S. officials, meanwhile, said they may follow yesterday's report on 2012 data by providing the same information from earlier years, a move that would help regulators and consumers trace changes in health care over time.

"Geeks, nerds and data freaks will have a good time with this," said Arthur Caplan, director of medical ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York. "But tomorrow morning, in terms of selecting your doctor it won't make one iota of difference. I'm not saying it's valueless, but its value is in trends and patterns" over the long haul.