Dr. Peter Bach, who practices at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and who advised Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) from 2005 to 2006, penned an editorial with this same title – “Paying Doctors to Ignore Patients” – in today’s New York Times. As bad as is sounds, Bach is right.
Physicians who are paid on a fee-for-service (FFS) basis are paid per service they provide, whether this service is a surgical procedure , a PET/CT scan, or an office visit. The more expensive services are reimbursed more handsomely. (This scheme does not apply to physicians who are reimbursed by capitation …read more

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What do doctors really think about their patients and the care that they provide? You can get an idea from a Reader’s Digest article fun-read titled, “41 Secrets Your Doctor Would Never Share.” Twenty-four doctors shares their thoughts on impatience, pills, bills, their sensitive side, and a few even offer a little free advice. Thoughts about their “darker side” is very telling. Page 3 of the article offers “shocking statistics” and the “anatomy of a doctor’s bill.
Watch for “ER physician, Colorado Spring, Colorado”, I think he/she is a bit of a Debbie Downer. …read more

The New York Times reports that few doctors have actually made the step to adopt electronic records (aka EMRs or EHRs, with M and H standing for “medical” or “health,” respectively). When almost every sector has adopted technology, what’s standing in the way of doctors doing the same? I think it boils down to a number of factors, some of which are noted in the NYT article. Do you agree? More importantly, what can we do to help doctors adopt IT?
Why I think doctors are not adopting EMRs:
- Many EMR vendors make it tough to determine who is offering what …read more

Members of the American Medical Association would like to keep “secret shoppers” — or people pretending to be patients so that they can assess something about a physician’s visit — out of the doctor’s office. The physicians have a point. Physicians are strapped for time and put considerable cognitive and emotional energy into each patient visit. Each “secret shopper” visit (or, let’s call it what it is — an unnecessary, pretend visit) takes up resources and time, and may not even be reimbursed.
I wouldn’t believe for a second an insurance plan “rating” of a physician or physician’s office. Most of …read more