In cost-effectiveness research, the cost of a medical intervention is reported as a dollar amount per quality-adjusted life year gained—the quality of health and the length of time over which the health state exists.
Physician employment adds a practice management stakeholder to the patient-physician encounter, a stakeholder whose financial interests differ from those of physicians in solo or group practice.
If a medical decision about high-value care involves a conflict between the principles of beneficence and justice, an explicit analysis of the individual case is necessary to ensure that the interests of both the patient and society are served.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(11):1022-1027. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.11.ecas1-1511.
Publicizing physician ordering information as a way of peer-pressuring hospital employees into cutting costs is likely to have unintended consequences.