Do some doctors abuse health-care system?

A must-read New Yorker piece looks at health-care abuses in Atlantic City, N.J.

The latest must-read New Yorker piece by Atul Gawande describes recent efforts to cut costs and improve quality by coordinating patient care – in particular that of the most expensive patients. In “The Hot Spotter” (gated), he follows several innovators, including Rushika Fernandopulle, who directs a clinic-based program in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Fernandopulle and his team face many challenges in managing costs and improving the care of his patients. But:

Their most difficult obstacle, however, has been the waywardness not of patients but of doctors-the doctors whom the patients see outside the clinic. … The Atlantic City casino workers and hospital staff … had the best-paying insurance in town. Some doctors weren’t about to let that business slip away.

Fernandopulle told me about a woman who had seen a cardiologist for chest pain two decades ago, when she was in her twenties. It was the result of a temporary, inflammatory condition, but he continued to have her see him for an examination and an electrocardiogram every three months, and a cardiac ultrasound every year. The results were always normal. After the clinic doctors advised her to stop, the cardiologist called her at home to say that her health was at risk if she didn’t keep seeing him. She went back.

The clinic encountered similar troubles with some of the doctors who saw its hospitalized patients. One group of hospital-based internists was excellent, and coordinated its care plans with the clinic. But the others refused, resulting in longer stays and higher costs.

Any guesses which internists were on salary and which were fee-for-service?

Commentators often worry that third-party payment leads to moral hazard and overconsumption by patients. That’s true, but we should also keep an eye on the providers. Payment reform is one of the key challenges in future health care reform.

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