Originally published August 6 2005
Bad doctors rake in the dough
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A new study has shown that doctors who do not take the proper precautions to stop infections in patients receive more money from Medicare and private insurance companies because they get rewarded for a patient's return.
A physician who makes a mistake and tries to fix it will deliver worse health care than one who does the job right the first time.
Unfortunately, under Medicare, the nation's health insurance program for the elderly and disabled, the first doctor will get paid a lot more than the second.
Bad health care is more expensive than good because patients usually don't get better after faulty treatments.
Instead of sanctioning the doctors and hospitals who make the expensive errors, however, Medicare and hundreds of private insurance plans reward them with additional payments.
Patients sufferd from post-operative infections that led to more surgery and lengthy hospital stays.
Instead of being punished, however, the hospital was rewarded by Medicare because the system reimburses providers for repeat visits.
By paying less to doctors and hospitals who do not make mistakes, the system punishes them for doing good.
The nation's health care cost problem is complex and won't be solved with easy fixes.
But the Post story clearly shows that making doctors and hospitals accountable for the quality of their treatment should be part of the solution.
One point that should be accepted by everyone is that low cost health care is not necessarily low quality.
According to the Post story, Louisiana ranked 50th in quality in 2001 yet first in Medicare spending.
This year, Medicare began requiring hospitals to report their performance on a handful of measures, such as how many heart attack patients received recommended beta blockers and aspirin.
At present, that information will not be used to punish the low- quality providers.
In time, however, the data could be the basis of a system that channels money to the best performers, rewarding those who get it right the first time.
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