[BITList] fee-for-service

[x50type at cox.net]

Oh, no..........US doctors to be paid on results – and encouraged to provide better care, not more care...........
[many will not like that]
ct



Paying for results, not treatments
New models that change the improper incentive in fee-for-service Medicare promise significant savings, but there are big issues still to work through.
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      Medicare pays most participating doctors and hospitals on a fee-for-service basis. (Los Angeles Times)
     
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One of the fundamental problems in the U.S. healthcare system is that the most common and straightforward payment method — paying a fee for each service rendered — encourages doctors and hospitals to provide more care, not better care. In fact, it discourages efficiencies that lead to healthier patients at lower cost because they translate into lower incomes for those providing the service.

Nowhere are these weaknesses more acute than in Medicare, which pays most participating doctors and hospitals on a fee-for-service basis. Shifting Medicare to new payment methods that encourage quality and efficiency is crucial to sustaining the program, which is the biggest driver in the federal government's long-term fiscal problems. As the baby boom generation enters its dotage, the ranks of Medicare beneficiaries are expected to swell from the current 50 million to 80 million in 2030. Unless the government can motivate the industry to treat these patients more effectively at lower cost, the pressure will only grow to shrink Medicare benefits or cover fewer of the elderly and disabled.

The ideal payment system would give providers a stake in the savings generated by more efficient care, as well as in the financial risk of ineffective treatments. Prodded by the 2010 healthcare law, Medicare is moving in that direction, as are private insurers. Part of Medicare's focus is on improving the quality of care delivered on a fee-for-service basis, on the theory that it will reduce the demand for treatment. To that end, it launched a value-based purchasing program that ties a portion of a hospital's payments to how well it meets specific quality targets, and it has begun reducing payments to hospitals that quickly readmit too many of the patients they treat.










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