In a New York Times essay, Sandeep Jauhar, MD responds to the CMS plan to award bonuses to hospitals that lower readmission rates. He believes that, instead, some of that money should be shared with doctors.
"Current law prohibits hospitals from paying doctors for reducing hospital services, even if the goal is to provide more efficient care. But such “gainsharing” will align doctors’ incentives with broader cost-cutting goals.
Our system needs to provide inducements to decrease the amount of health care ... especially (to counter) ... the current incentives that encourage (un-coordinated care and) rampant over-utilization".
When the shapers of healthcare reform do not seriously consider an issue such as gainsharing for physicians, we have to wonder how relevant they think doctors are to healthcare reform.
ReplyDeleteSo far, we can't even get the Senate to stop the drastic Medicare cuts we face in less than 30 days.
The AMA and MSSNY should start discussing an SGR fix as a litmus test for how relevant a politician considers doctors to the health of our nation.
FD
the county medical societies of suffolk and westchester sponsored a resolution that does what you suggest! the mssny council adopted it at their nov 19th meeting.
ReplyDeletethe resolution requires mssny to consider an opposition statement should the sgr fix fail.
physicians do not individually negotiate with policymakers on health care reform. so it is vitally important that our organized representatives frame our opinions of opposition when the needs of our profession are repeatedly ignored.
cr
Somewhat off-topic but certainly germane to cost-savings, Voters favor tort reform by two to one margin.
ReplyDeleteRasmussen: Fifty-seven percent (57%) of voters nationwide favor limiting the amount of money a jury can award a plaintiff in a medical malpractice lawsuit. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 29% disagree and 14% are not sure.
Forty-seven percent (47%) believe that restricting jury awards for medical malpractice lawsuits will significantly reduce the cost of health care in the United States. Twenty-eight percent (28%) disagree, and 25% are not sure.
Apparently, the people are smarter than the legislators think.