Are Doctors Responsible for Rising Health Care Costs?
Posted by Todd Fries | Filed under Health Insurance
Health care costs are high and solving the problem is complex, but one person who controls a lot of what’s spent is your doctor. Doctors get paid per tests, operations and procedures. There’s a built-in incentive to do more of those and not necessarily always provide better health care service to you.
Imagine if your auto mechanic worked in the same fashion? You’d go in for a simple repair, and they’d want to run a few tests “just in case.” This leads to a simple, “Whatever you say, doc” mentality when your doctors order additional services.” If doctors followed their mechanics’ lead and handed out estimates, people might respond differently to requests to perform additional services. Also, once you’ve paid your “out-of-pocket max” with health insurance you’re basically on an all-you-can-eat-buffet since carriers are then responsible for all additional bills.
In addition, according to Motley Fool – Finance, part of your health insurance costs cover your doctor’s malpractice insurance premiums which have skyrocketed over the years. If there was less chance of winning a malpractice case against your doctor as proposed through Tort reform, malpractice insurance costs would likely come down. That would in turn reduce patients’ costs, and therefore reduce Health Insurance costs.
Even with an overall change of patients/doctor interaction, government continues to be the largest culprit of wasted Health Care dollars. Statistics show as taxpayers we’re indirectly continuing to pay for costs incurred by Medicare and the uninsured.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
