Monday, July 14, 2014

Fee for service results in overdoctoring

" The financial incentives for doctors are wrong. Sometimes a doctor should be rewarded for not
intervening !"
http://www.ehfg.org/839.html

If we pay surgeons for doing surgery, then why are we surprised that they respond rationally to these economic incentives by doing more surgery ?  It's not the surgeons who are unethical - it's the incentives which are irrational !

If back surgeons were paid for not doing back surgery, I am sure many more of them would advise conservative non-surgical therapy ( just like so many orthopedic surgeons do , once they retire from active surgical practise)

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