A solution to China’s overprescribing?

Doctors are fined by “local health-care monitors” if suspected of overprescribing medications:

In this remote mountain village, residents were complaining about a local doctor. Some suspected he was prescribing drugs that weren’t necessary.

That set off an unusual response: A special council of local health-care monitors — formed as part of an experiment to address sweeping problems in China’s health-care system — swung into action. In 2004, they fined the doctor 100 yuan, or about $13 — a significant amount of money in this poor part of China — for overprescribing drugs. “Hopefully, the other village doctors will take this as a warning,” they wrote in an official notice posted in the village.

(via Healthcare Economist)