Upcoding and misrepresenting clinical information constitute fraud, cost a lot, and can result in patient harm and unnecessary procedures and prescriptions.
AMA J Ethics. 2020;22(3):E221-231. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2020.221.
An emerging medical ethics issue is whether to delay posting pathology reports to electronic health records (EHR) to allow clinicians time to follow up.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(8):826-832. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.8.pfor1-1608.
The picture that emerges from study of physician economic behavior is mixed, but from the intensity of responses by some professional societies to Medicare's coding modifier proposal, it appears that economic incentives matter a lot to many of their members.