http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6170O520100208 Medicare's move in 2005 to pay doctors to do bladder cancer surgery in their offices rather than in hospitals dramatically raised the number of procedures and overall health costs, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
The findings reflect the complexity of cutting health costs in the United States, showing how in some cases Medicare -- the insurance program for the elderly and disabled -- gives doctors incentives to provide too much care, they said.
Cutting costs and improving access for millions of Americans now without health insurance are major aims of President Barack Obama's efforts to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system but the legislation is stalled in Congress.
....................
"What we found based on our billing data was that the number of procedures dramatically increased without a decline in the number of hospital-based procedures," Hemani, whose study appears in the journal Cancer, said in a telephone interview.
..............
Hemani said doctors, policyholders and patients should realize that "despite best efforts, there are factors other than just evidence-based medicine that influence how physicians treat patients."
"One of those factors implied by our study is financial reimbursement," he said.