The future success of the Affordable Care Act depends on doctors' willingness to take the lead in identifying reforms that will lead to high-quality, cost-effective health care.
Medical stewardship is a way of describing a relatively new obligation to maximize health care resources. A professionwide conversation about its meaning and value is needed.
Antibiotics can be compared to other forms of “tragedy of the commons,” whereby a common good (effective treatment of infections) is jeopardized by individual consumption and lack of stewardship.
AMA J Ethics. 2024;26(5):E418-428. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2024.418.
The current Medicare operation—reimbursing medical goods and services to a growing number of people without basing the reimbursement benefit on the actual cost of the services—is unsustainable, but there are some possible remedies.