An op-ed in the WSJ once again shows the flaws in our current physician reimbursement system:
One would be hard-pressed to find a lawyer in the U.S. today who does not keep client records electronically. Ditto for accountants, architects, engineers and virtually every other profession. Yet although the computer is ubiquitous and studies show that electronic medical record systems have the capacity to improve quality and greatly reduce medical errors, no more than one in five physicians or one in four hospitals have such systems.Why has the practice of medicine (as opposed to the science of medicine) changed so little in the modern era? The reason is because of the way we pay for medical care, particularly the way we pay doctors. At last count, there were about 7,500 specific tasks Medicare pays for. Telephone consultations are not among them. Nor are email consultations or electronic record keeping. What is true of Medicare is also true of Blue Cross and most employer plans.
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” . . . studies show that electronic medical record systems have the capacity to improve quality and . . “
What an overreach. A much more accurate word than “studies” would be “sales pitches”. As the experience of tens of thousands of doctors show, they also “have the capacity” to degrade quality, erode efficiency, and generally foul things up beyond all recognition.
The rest of the general idea is one that I agree with in that the payment system does not fostor efficiency in pricing not does it promote quality. In fact, fixed prices reward low quality, as the less effort and time one expends for the fixed price, the more one is making for ones efforts. It is immoral.
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