After years of funding disease-specific treatment, donation trends have shifted to support broader health systems infrastructure development. A remaining challenge is how to sustain antiretroviral therapy (ART) for patients in resource-poor regions.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(7):681-690. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.7.ecas3-1607.
Introduction of an intervention that reduces the perceived risk of a given behavior may cause a person to increase risky behavior—this is called “risk compensation.”
The objective is to compare the costs of providing the same level of quality. When resource-use and quality measures are juxtaposed, the resources used to provide the same level of quality can be compared.
Preventing bad outcomes for teens and their offspring was the impetus behind confidential care for reproductive health. Requiring parental involvement created an obstacle to the provision of necessary care.
Eitan Neidich, Alon B. Neidich, David A. Axelrod, MD, and John P. Roberts, MD
Geographic disparities in availability of organs for transplant have spawned for-profit companies that help patients get on waitlists in more than one region and arrange travel for them if an organ becomes available.
Shivan J. Mehta, MD, MBA and David A. Asch, MD, MBA
Outcome-based payment more closely aligns payments with what patients want, which is better health rather than more health care. But these approaches remain challenging to implement.
Measuring outcomes alone is not the answer. There should be a way to reward the doctor for educating a patient about lifestyle modifications and then documenting that the care provided followed patient preferences.
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.