Learn about the development of the systems for delivery and reimbursement of health care in the U.S. from the unregulated free-market state in 1908 to the complex, highly managed state in which it exists in 2008.
To be a useful tool for assessing quality of physician care, pay-for-performance must be designed to include process measures and to not penalize physicians for treating patients with difficult-to-manage conditions.
Direct sterilization by means of tubal ligation is morally unacceptable in Catholic bioethics but other procedures that result in indirect sterilization may be acceptable under certain conditions.
Physicians should understand and be sensitive to all of the issues that affect patients when they prescribe the tertogenic medication isotretinoin for treatment of acne vulgaris.
Professional, practical, clinical and cultural obligations should guide decision making when a funding agency restricts the types of counseling and advice it allows medical professionals to dispense.
Appropriate use of the pay-for-performance system may improve quality of care by counteracting physician incentives to overtreat in fee-for-service situations or undertreat in capitation plans.