Did you know your doctor is paid more to get you to take cholesterol drugs?

Did you know your doctor is paid more to get to to receive all your shots?

Many of my patients are shocked to hear that their doctor is paid more to encourage them in their medical behavior.

Yes, this is questionably ethical.

How?  Your doctor is less likely to question a drug or an injection if he or she is paid to get you to take it.

How do I know? I used to be one of those doctors . . .

I’ve included a link below for BCBS for example.

Quality Performance means that your doctor is paid between 1-4% more as an incentive to get you to take your Cholesterol medication and to get your shots.

Medicare, Medicare Advantage, BSBS, Aetna, Cigna, Humana . . . they all have questionably ethical incentive plans base on quality performance.  They are paid for YOUR performance. The government encourages it.

If Medicare pays your doctor $100,000 that year, a 2% increase is $2,000.

The average cardiologist in Arizona makes close to $500,000 per year. A 2% increase is an additional $10,000 per year if he can get 80% of his patients to take Statin drugs and get you to take your shots.

Don’t believe me? Check out the screen clips from this BCBS webpage:

https://provcomm.ibx.com/pnc-ibc/Pages/QIPS.aspx?FilterField1=Category&FilterValue1=Quality%20Measures