Incentives for Doctors

P4P, Pay for Performance, is an idea that is defined exactly by the way it sounds: Reward quality performance. An ambitious proposal had recently arose to pay doctors in public hospitals based on the quality of their work instead of merely focusing on the quantative data of the numbers of tests they order or pills they prescribe. New York is already on board to reward hospitals bonuses to distribute to their doctors based on certain measures of patient satisfaction and the administration of specific therapies. There are certain aspects of the law, such as the Medicare Independent Payment Advisory Board, that may be of assistance in reducing costs, if Congress does not interfere greatly. It is no secret that this country expends extraordinary amounts of money on healthcare. “Americans spend more than twice as much per capita as other developed countries on health care ---- a crippling 18 percent of the country’s economic output, and growing.” The health care system of America is not much different from that of the best European countries even down to the number of pills prescribed or blood tests and surgeries performed. Despite the amount of money spent on the system, we as a country are not leading in any category. There are a number of possible reasons as to why our medical treatments lie at its current costs such as the high price of malpractice insurance or that everything costs less in other countries as they tend to have one big payer, such as the government to bargain down prices. Although, we have Medicare, which has the power to drive down prices, it does sparingly. For, doctors tend to stop serving Medicare patients if the reimbursements fall too low.

“Instead of leverage, P4P employs incentives. Reduce the length of stay for acute-care patients, cut the rate of readmission for pneumonia cases, make sure heart-attack victims get a talk about diet before they are discharged, and you stand to find a little windfall in your paycheck.” P4P,...