A bonus for health, payable to the doctor

Big amount of health care cost is a big problem not only in United States, but also all over the world. Now, Medicare is in crisis that it’s facing soaring costs and questions about what all that money is buying. The costs are soaring, one of the reason is because by sometimes unnecessary or inappropriate procedures. There was a quiet revolution taking place in Medicare, which could set a new standard for the way medicine is practiced in this country.

This program is primarily a pay-for-performance approach, like carmakers and fast-food restaurants giving employees financial incentives to meet goals for quality. Hopefully, this program could help the Medicare crisis.

The article says that many doctors and hospitals are paid to do more by seeing more patients, performing more tests, conducting more procedures without regarding to quality or results under current system. However, this Medicare experiment is meant to change all that.

The article also says that by the end of this year, more than 600,000 Medicare recipients will be in test programs that pay doctors and hospitals bonuses for achieving better results. The Marshfield Clinic in Wisconsin participated in a three-year program for doctors began on April 1.

In this test experiment, physicians will receive bonuses if they measurably improve care for patients with common chronic diseases, including congestive heart failure, coronary disease, diabetes and high blood pressure. Also, to qualify for the bonuses, the doctors must also provide preventive services like vaccines and cancer screening, and they must save Medicare money by keeping patients out of the hospital and eliminating unnecessary procedures.

I think this pay-for-performance program looks good. In medical care, quality is a very important fact; but due to limitation of the costs, the quality and the performances of physicians are not as good as they should be. If this program works well, I think the health outcome would be better and also the unnecessary medical costs might decline, which would lead less health care costs.