The enrollment at U.S. medical schools has changed very little over the last 10 years, according to an article in the September 7 issue of JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, a th
Dr Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the BMA's General Practitioners Committee (GPC), commenting on the Government's access announcement, said the Government was failing to tackle the underlying capacity pro
According to a health service watchdog in the UK, getting in to see the doctor is not as easy as it should be.Apparently as many as one-third of the public are unable to book an appointment with their doctor more than three days in advance.
Despite a record number of female medical students, medicine remains a white male dominated profession - but its days as such are numbered, says a paper in this week's British Medical Journal (BMJ).
An article published in the Sept. 8, 2005 New England Journal of Medicine sheds new light on the $130 billion smoking cessation plan proposed in the Department of Justice suit against the tobacco com
In a first study of its kind, researchers at the Mailman School of Public Health assessed the ability and willingness of healthcare workers to report to work in the event of disasters invo
Nutrition scientists with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) have conducted a nationwide survey to determine if hospital cafeterias and restaurants are meeting the need for low-fat,
Today for the first time, GPs in Wales are able to demonstrate tangibly that they are providing a very high standard of care for their patients. Publication of first year achievement scores in the new GP contract's Quality and Outcomes Framework shows
Many hospitals have adopted more generous charity-care guidelines for uninsured patients after a barrage of publicity about aggressive hospital billing and collection practices and a spate of lawsuits alleging hospitals overcharged uninsured patients,
Liver services in the United Kingdom need better funding and better staffing, argues a senior doctor in this week's British Medical Journal. Mortality from liver disease is increasing in the UK. I
Date: Monday, 12-Feb-2007
Health insurers increasingly are rating providers based on quality and cost-effectiveness, but some physicians say that the rating systems rely too heavily on patient claims data and that insurers give favorable ratings to doctors who charge the least amount of money, the AP/Washington Examiner reports.Insurers say the programs, which sometimes result in lower copayments for patients who visit top-rated doctors, are "an attempt to help employers struggling with ever-rising health care costs to ensure that their money is well spent," according to the AP/Examiner.
Jeffrey Kang, senior vice president and CMO at Cigna, said rating doctors by quality of care and cost-effectiveness can reduce health care costs by 3% to 5%.
Blaine Bos, a partner at Mercer Health & Benefits, said employers have indicated their interest in such programs but are hesitant to use them because there are no universally accepted quality measures.
A Mercer study found that 9% of employers with more than 500 employees last year used programs that ranked physicians by quality.
According to the AP/Examiner, "Many physicians suspect insurers' motivation" for the programs is increased profits, and some have filed lawsuits against insurers using rating systems.
Jim Rohack, a cardiologist and American Medical Association board member, said, "We're concerned that as insurers try to maximize profits, they are saying that the doctor that charges the least amount of money is the highest quality."
Physicians also say that using patient claims data to determine the ratings can be misleading because the data show only what tests or services a patient received but not what a doctor ordered.
Insurers acknowledge that claims data sometimes can be incorrect and say that while using "physicians' medical records would be a better vehicle," it "isn't economically feasible until they are all available electronically, and employers can't afford to wait as health care costs jump," the AP/Examiner reports.
Charles Cutler, chief medical director-national accounts at Aetna, said that insurers need to talk to doctors about why quality rating programs are necessary.
Culter said there is a lack of incentives for physicians to practice cost-effective medicine and doctors might not know the cost of different services (Agovino, AP/Washington Examiner, 2/7).
This article is republished with kind permission from our friends at the The Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery of in-depth coverage of health policy developments, debates and discussions. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for Kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Copyright 2007 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.