Study shows how Medicare rewards MDs for overuse

[Celebration]

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6170O520100208

Medicare's move in 2005 to pay doctors to do bladder cancer surgery in their offices rather than in hospitals dramatically raised the number of procedures and overall health costs, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
The findings reflect the complexity of cutting health costs in the United States, showing how in some cases Medicare -- the insurance program for the elderly and disabled -- gives doctors incentives to provide too much care, they said.

Cutting costs and improving access for millions of Americans now without health insurance are major aims of President Barack Obama's efforts to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system but the legislation is stalled in Congress.

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"What we found based on our billing data was that the number of procedures dramatically increased without a decline in the number of hospital-based procedures," Hemani, whose study appears in the journal Cancer, said in a telephone interview.

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Hemani said doctors, policyholders and patients should realize that "despite best efforts, there are factors other than just evidence-based medicine that influence how physicians treat patients."

"One of those factors implied by our study is financial reimbursement," he said.

[napi21]

1. Let me tell you a story from someone in the inside of a hosp. system.

My friend is an exec. with a very large hosp. system. she is responsible for negotiating the agreements with all the ins. cos. The other day she related one to me.

A guy who is a doc & had his pow private practice sold it and then joined an ins. co. When he was a doc, he once told her "when I have a LOT of patients, I tell them I just need to see them once a year. When the patient # goes down I tell them to come back in six months. If business is bad, I can go down as far as one a month!" Now of course,, he's on the other side of the fence fighting for the insurance cos that paid him as a Doc. My friend said the diiscussion got rather heated!

[Celebration]

2. interesting

And he admitted it. Sometimes it is almost subconscious, but most people act and vote with their financial interests--yet they think that they don't. Having a certain type of degree doesn't really change human nature.