#1 Dinosaur looks at potential implications for Medicare’s recent P4P decisions:
How long before Medicare refuses to pay for an appendectomy if the pathology is negative? If the appendix was normal, then it didn’t need to come out, right? What about a negative breast biopsy, or any kind of exploratory surgery that doesn’t yield positive pathological findings? Couldn’t a cardiac catheterization that showed clean coronaries be considered “unnecessary”?What about imaging? Billions of dollars spent annually on diagnostic imaging means tremendous opportunities for reigning in costs by refusing to pay for studies that are normal. No brain tumor or other abnormality found on that MRI? Then why should we pay for it?
Related posts:
- Slippery Slope: Paychecks Docked for Fat Smokers
- How the economy may make health care costs soar
- Money for earthquakes or health care?
- Cardiac scans are not ready for prime time
- Prior authorizations for Medicare?
- The Feres doctrine applied to Medicare and Medicaid?
- Medicare cuts: "In an avalanche, no snowflake feels responsible"
KevinMD.com on Facebook
{ 2 comments }
You mean contingency fees like lawyers? So Docs will get nothing when they accomplish nothing, but 40% of everything a person earns the rest of thier life when they save a life. Pediatrics is starting to look really good!!
Won’t other doctors be making the call as to the quality of the performance?
Comments on this entry are closed.