Similar key outcomes in patients from hospitals where financial incentives were offered and patients from hospitals where financial incentives were not offered suggest that financial incentives may not be the answer to improving quality of care.
The early diagnosis of Alzheimer disease is a boon in that it enables advance planning, but that planning process can engender conflict between respect for future-oriented autonomy and future welfare.
Valuable lessons for the accountable care organization model can be gleaned from Medicare's Physician Group Practice Demonstration, but, until it proves broadly successful, other strategies to curb Medicare spending must be identified.
Variations among physicians in diagnosis and X-ray interpretation, the percentages of which have remained essentially unchanged for five decades, raise serious ethical concerns.