As we know, the physician reimbursement system is skewed heavily towards performing procedures.
Increasing payments for office visits will obviously help primary care doctors, but as this orthopedic surgeon notes, can also help proceduralists. Studies have shown that in cases of knee osteoarthritis, patients who undergo arthroscopy do not necessarily have better outcomes.
With this in mind, “there are countless examples of orthopedic care that might benefit from increased office visit rates – one can imagine a surgeon taking a half hour to counsel a patient to AVOID a knee scope in a degenerative knee.”
Indeed, the best surgeons know when not to operate. With a payment system that encourages counseling, rather than a procedure, specialists will only be further encouraged to do what’s best for patients.
Related posts:
- E-mails and telephone calls to the doctor cut down on patient office visits
- When specialists provide primary care, and why patients aren’t complaining
- Should primary care distance themselves from specialists?
- Primary care-specialty income gap: It’s worse than we think
- Should you give patients their office notes?
- A surgeon dumps post-op patients to hospitalists
- Do longer office visits matter?
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Better reimbursement for office visits will help doctors be able to spend more time with patients and increase compliance, patient satisfaction and quality of care. Similarly it can reduce cost just by having more time for counselling patients on preventive management of diseases.
I don’t get it. If a patient doesn’t need surgery, it shouldn’t matter if you spend 5 minutes with him or thirty. How much a physician is remunerated for an office visit ought not to be the deciding factor whether or not an operation is recommended. It’s either indicated or it isn’t. I mean, we’re professionals here right?
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