Pay for Performance: Doctors, Hospitals and Pills

So you want a change in the way medicine is practiced? You are not satisfied with the way doctors and hospitals perform their duties? Do you want to find a way to get treatment from “better” doctors; doctors who are able to do a better job to cure you but with less risk of complications? Would you like to see all doctors and hospitals required to follow protocols and achieve benchmarks for the results of treatments based on evidence based medicine studies or statistically achievable norms? Should their report cards be made public regarding how well they are following the rules ad how well they are doing?

Would you like to select from a list of doctors and hospitals who are better than others and know which doctors and hospitals one should avoid? Should doctors and hospitals be paid by patients, insurance companies and the government based on where on the list of acceptable performance they are located?

How about pills and other medicines? Would you like for pharmaceutical companies to be held responsible through selective payment based on results? Would you like to have the ability to pay for them only if they prove to be effective in improving your very own condition and not pay for them or get full refund of your money if you they show no results for you personally?

You may not be aware that all this is not some futuristic dream but is already by little spurts going into practice. It has a name: Pay for Performance. The question is when all medical care is practiced this way will there be a net benefit for the patient and society in general. Are there any problems, flaws or something unethical that you can see in this concept of improving medical care? Let’s hear from you. After all, Pay for Performance is all being done for you. ..Maurice.

Read more about this:

Report cards and benchmarks for doctors and hospitals:”Is Zero the Ideal Death Rate?” by Thomas H Lee, M.D.,David F. Torchiana, M.D., and James E. Lock, M.D., New England Journal of Medicine, July 12, 2007 issue page 111.

AMA: Delegates Want Principles First with Pay for Performance (MedPage Today)

Pricing Pills by the Resuts (New York Times)